Smile
by kek123452003
Summary: A life-altering event brings two people together. But will they make it to happiness?
1. Chapter 1

Title: Smile Author: Kelley Rating: PG-13 Category: A/U, general, Josh/Amy, [just for a little while], D/other, J/D Spoilers: Anything through the first three seasons is fair game but I'll try to stick to pre-"Stirred". Disclaimers: I have absolutely no claim to these West Wing characters whatsoever, no matter what the voices inside my head say. As for any other references to pop culture I may make that I don't own, I am a lowly high school student with a C+ average, no money, and a highly overactive imagination so please don't sue! Emma Wilder, Ben Peterson, T.J. Moss, Nicole Moss-Braun, Lily Irving, Mena Falansio, and Dr. Michael Flynn are entirely my creation and I retain all rights to exclusively use them in my fics. Feedback: I will shave a monkey's uncle for feedback, baby! Notes: The story starts after the Democratic National Convention, where the president was re-nominated and is pretty much A/U. There will be flashbacks that will be marked with *****. The president finally hired a replacement for Mrs. Landingham and he chose Donna. Since she, like the rest of us, can't stand to see Josh with Amy she took the job. Also Bruno, Connie, and Doug never existed in this universe. Other than that, everything's pretty much as is.  
Air Force One: August 23, 2002  
  
Donna leaned back into the plush seat as she felt the aircraft taking off. She had been working nonstop all day, staying with President as he had given several dozen interviews before taking off from O'Hare back to Andrews after the convention and she had been having to adjust his schedule what seemed like every fifteen minutes. She was dead tired and the President knew it. He had ordered her to spend the entire four-hour flight sleeping and she was being given the rest of the day off when they got to D.C. Granted, it was going to be around 11:30 pm when they landed but it was really the thought that counted. The President was really a remarkably considerable man to work and while technically Donna always had worked for him, it was a much different relationship now that she was his personal assistant.  
  
Donna sighed, thinking about how much her professional life had changed in the past few months. She, Donnatella Igraine Moss, a college-dropout from Madison, was now in charge of helping to keep the office of the President of the United States running smoothly. Some might say it was a less strenuous job than say, Deputy C.o.S. But like there are no small parts just small actors in Hollywood, in the White House there are no small jobs just demanding, underpaid ones. Being the President's assistant was much harder than being Josh's in some respects. She had to travel much more frequently, she worked longer hours, and she was in charge of keeping the president from going crazy during the day. One an average day, the President will lose his mind roughly three to four times. It had always been Mrs. Landingham who had kept him on an even keel and now Donna had discovered that it was her duty as well. In that respect, it was quite similar to what she had done with Josh but it was different because the President didn't insult her taste in men and she didn't have to decorate the Residence for him to have a romantic evening with the First Lady. Donna chewed carefully on her lower lip, a bit of a reminder that she had promised herself she wouldn't let herself think of Josh and Amy like that. And when she says "that", she means in a romantic relationship together. She just didn't understand what Josh saw in her. Amy was a female version of Josh, which meant that she was brilliant, egotistical, and stubborn as an ox. By definition, that meant that she had to be right about everything. And Donna, knowing Josh as well as she did, knew that Josh hated being with a woman who fought him on everything. Donna just didn't get what he saw in her. Maybe he realized it was time for him to start settling down, maybe he thought it was a smart political move to be with her, maybe it was just really great sex. Although that was an option she didn't like to consider since it would mean she actually had to let herself believe that they were having sex. The only option that Donna wouldn't even think of considering was the one she dreaded most of all: that Josh's feelings for Amy weren't motivated out of politics or guilt but rather out of genuine love.  
  
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Sam's voice asked, breaking Donna out of her reverie.  
  
Donna's tired eyes looked up at him with a surprised look. "How'd you know that?"  
  
"I'm intuitive like that."  
  
"Sam," she sighed tiredly.  
  
Sam looked down sheepishly as he sat down next to her. "The President sent me here to check on you."  
  
"Ah," she said knowingly. "Ever the busybody he is"  
  
"Yeah but he's actually, you know, right this time. You do look pretty run down, Donna."  
  
Donna rolled her eyes at him. "So he's gotten to you too, huh? You know just because he's the leader of the free world he has this crazy notion that he can boss everybody around. Did he send you here to take my temperature or is Mrs. Bartlet going to be waiting on the tarmac when we land?"  
  
"Actually," Sam said carefully, "It wasn't just the President; everyone's noticed how tired you've been lately. CJ, Toby, Charlie. Josh even told me to make sure you were feeling okay while we were in Chicago before he left this morning."  
  
"He did?" Donna asked surprised. "Why?"  
  
"He noticed that you were looking like an extra from, "Night of the Living Dead", when we were in Chicago. He told me if I valued my job when we got back that I should make sure you were okay on the flight back since he couldn't be here."  
  
"Oh," she said knowingly, "that's right I almost forgot. He has to go to that fundraiser with Amy tonight doesn't he? That's why he couldn't be here himself to be nosey," she answered annoyed, completely missing Sam's point that Josh was concerned about her.  
  
Sam let out a breath before jumping in. "Okay, I'm just going to assume you're acting like this because you're sick and miserable, not because you're actually pissed at Josh for some stupid reason or another."  
  
"I'm not pissed at him!" she cried incredulously. "Why does everybody assume that I'm pissed at him?!"  
  
"Okay," said Sam quickly, realizing his mistake almost before the words came out of his mouth. "You're not pissed at him, its something else."  
  
"Yes because my life doe not revolve around Joshua Lyman," Donna continued, not even seeming to hear Sam. "In fact, my life never revolved around him. I was never his little lapdog or whatever else anyone says about me."  
  
"No one ever said you were." Sam started before Donna cut him off.  
  
"So what if he and I were closer than most bosses are with their assistants?" she plowed through, even though she was beginning to feel a little lightheaded. All this arguing with Sam was making her tired. "We worked long hours together, naturally some form of closeness is going to form. It doesn't mean that I'm going to be pissed at him for abandoning his job, his very important job, just so he can go schmooze with his girlfriend."  
  
"No one's saying that you are," Sam managed to get in. "We never thought that you were Josh's little lost puppy or anything like that. We just think that you've been pushing yourself a little too hard lately and it's beginning to affect your personality. You know, you've been burning the candle at both ends for weeks now. Maybe you should think about taking some time."  
  
Sam droned on but Donna had stopped listening. She was becoming acutely aware of how dizzy she was feeling. The entire cabin seemed to be spinning and Donna was having trouble focusing her eyes. She thought it was just the change in altitude and she figured walking around the plane a little would help her. Just as she stood up, it felt like someone had jammed a cloth down her throat. All of a sudden she couldn't breathe and she turned to look at Sam who had a confused look on his face.  
  
"Donna?" she heard him say before her legs gave out from under her. The last thing she felt was his arms reach out to catch her before she hit the floor. When she looked up, instead of Sam's blue eyes she wished she were seeing Josh's brown ones. That was her last conscious thought before everything went black.  
  
George Washington University Hospital: The Following Morning  
  
".But we'll need to run more tests before we now exactly what stage she's in right now so we want to keep her here for observation for a while," Donna heard the unfamiliar voice say as she was trying in vain to open her eyes.  
  
"Can you tell us anything right now?" the unmistakable voice of President Bartlet asked. Donna as finally able to open her eyes even though the second she did she regretted it. There were suddenly all these bright colors that seemed to be attacking her line of vision all at the same time while simultaneously there was this unknown roaring in her ears that left her basically deaf. It took a few seconds but her vision finally adjusted and the roaring in her ears quieted to gentle hum. Out of the corner of her right eye, she could make out what looked to be four people huddled in the corner of the room, which she had now assumed to be a hospital room, due to the antiseptic smell and the feel of the cheap cotton gown she had on. While she was curious to know how she had suddenly transported from Air Force One to a hospital bed, she also wanted to know whom these three people were and what they were doing in her room.  
  
Normally when Donna had a question, she just opened her mouth and asked it. Now Donna found that while she could open her mouth, her vocal cords seemed to be paralyzed. Also, moving any part of her body, her mouth included, seemed to cause her agonizing pain. The most she could get out was a quiet moan but that was more than enough to get the attention of the people in room, who promptly gathered around her bed save the agent.  
  
"Good morning, Donna," the President said, looking down on her with his concerned, fatherly face on. That was never a good sign.  
  
Donna took a second to swallow before saying in a raspy whisper, "Good morning, Sir." A hand with a cup of something in it reached out to put the straw near her lips. She carefully sipped the cool water slowly and just as slowly the burning sensation in her throat lessened. When she was done, she looked up and saw the faces of the President, Leo, one of the president's agents still in the corner of the room, and an unknown face in sterile blue medical scrubs and a white lab coat that Donna assumed was the doctor. "What happened to me?"  
  
The three men gave each other a look before the doctor answered. "Donna, my name is Dr. Michael Flynn." The man's soft, brown skin and intelligent face gave him an aura of gentleness and trust that Donna immediately latched onto. "I'll be your treating physician. Do you know where you are right know?" he asked as he reached into his lab coat pocket and retrieved a small flashlight which he than proceeded to shine into Donna's eyes.  
  
"I think I'm at a hospital," she answered, squinting slightly from the bright light.  
  
"That's right," Dr. Flynn answered, putting the flashlight back into his pocket. He then reached for her wrist and began checking her pulse. "You're at George Washington University Hospital in DC. You've had a nice little nap, young lady."  
  
"What day is it?" Donna asked, turning to the President and Leo while Dr. Flynn continued his examination.  
  
"Its Sunday, about nine o'clock in the morning," said Leo, his usual gruff voice replaced by a calm one with dulcet tones. Now Donna was really beginning to get worried. Something must be really wrong if even Leo was acting like this.  
  
"Well okay," said Donna carefully as the doctor propped her up so he could listen to her heart and lungs. "So what happened to me? Did I pass out and hit my head or something?" she asked in a quiet voice, worried about herself for the first time in a long time. The three men glanced at each other again before Dr. Flynn took the initiative.  
  
"Mr. President, Mr. McGarry," he asked as he placed the stethoscope back around his neck, "could you give us a moment? I'd rather talk to Donna in private." Even though he had already told them what he suspected was wrong when Donna was unconscious.  
  
"Of course, Doctor," the President said. He and Leo both gave Donna's hand a squeeze as they left and the agent discretely followed them.  
  
Dr. Flynn moved to sit in the chair on the left side of Donna's bed. While he adjusted, it gave Donna a chance to appraise the man. He appeared to be in his mid-60s, with almost snow-white hair providing a stark contrast to his black skin. His hands were large and soft, weathered from years of doing useful work. His eyes had that very honest quality that one likes to see in a doctor yet there was also deep empathy in them at the same time. Donna trusted him at once and hoped that whatever news he was about to give her was not as bad as she felt it was going to be.  
  
"Well young lady," he said kindly. "You gave a lot of people quite a scare."  
  
"What exactly happened?" she asked moving to sit up but realizing at once that she was too weak to do that. The doctor solved her problem by taking the remote control and adjusting the bed.  
  
"What's the last thing that you remember happening before you woke up?" Dr. Flynn asked.  
  
Donna searched through her foggy mind, trying to locate that elusive memory. "Um, I think I was on Air Force One," she said haltingly. "With Sam. I was with Sam on the plane and then." she paused, "I don't remember. What happened?"  
  
"Yes you were on the plane with Sam," responded the doctor. "What happened was you appeared to have fainted onboard and you lost consciousness on and off for the rest of the flight. The cockpit radioed ahead and you were brought here as soon as you landed." Donna took a minute to absorb that knowledge. She remembered feeling lousy almost as soon as the plane took off so she must have fainted right after they left O'Hare. It startled her to think that that had been her last clear thought before she was unconscious for eight hours. 'This must be very serious' she thought to herself.  
  
"This is very serious, Donna" the doctor said as he put on a pair of glasses, almost as if he knew what she was thinking. "You're going to have to stay here for some time so I suggest you get in contact with the people who need to be contacted."  
  
"How long will I be here for?"  
  
Scanning quickly through a medical chart that Donna assumed was hers, he said, "At least a couple of weeks but probably more so maybe you should call your family."  
  
"A couple of weeks?" she asked, surprised and nervous all at once, so she started to ramble. "Why that long? I fainted, for Christ sakes it's probably nothing and you're only keeping me here so you don't piss off the President, who is just a nosey busybody so I don't get why you care so much."  
  
"Donna," the doctor said gently but firmly, putting the folder down and looking straight at her. "When you fainted on board, at one point you stopped breathing, for no apparent reason." That got Donna's attention. "The naval doctor was able to revive you using CPR and inserting a tube down your throat to help you breathe onboard but we need to know what's wrong with you right now."  
  
Donna couldn't even move in that instant. She felt paralyzed and the only thought that ran through her head was that she had stopped breathing. Someone had to give her CPR. Someone had to put a tube down her throat to give her oxygen. Someone had to breathe for her. Someone had to keep her alive because she couldn't. It was a sobering thought.  
  
"I.I stopped breathing?" she asked in a stunned whisper.  
  
"Yes," said the doctor, sympathy showing in his every gesture. "You did. And there probably is something that's seriously wrong with you right now. What exactly that is, I don't know." He reached for her left hand. "But I promise you I'm going to do everything within my power to find out what it is and cure it. But I need your help too. This may be a long process that could take anywhere from hours to weeks. It's going to be tough, disappointing, and not all that pretty. I'm going to need you to be strong for me Donna." He gave her hand a squeeze, almost as if he were making a promise or a deal of some kind. "Can you be strong for me?"  
  
Donna just wanted to close her eyes and not open them again until this whole thing was over with. The possibility that there was something seriously wrong with her was a concept she couldn't even begin to seriously comprehend but she knew that she had to. She thought back to all the times, when people she loved where sick: nursing her little brother T.J. when he was hospitalized with pneumonia, sitting with her mom in the hospital before and after every surgery when the doctors tried unsuccessfully to stop the cancer from spreading, refusing to bring Josh any work when he was recovering from the gunshot. All of these people she loved so much and she had watched them all be strong for her even when they didn't want to be. Donna knew then that she had that same obligation to the family and friends that would be around her during this time. She made her decision right at that moment that whatever this was, she wasn't going to let it beat her, no matter how hard it was. She just couldn't let her family suffer like that again. She looked at the doctor and squeezed his hand as hard as he could.  
  
"Absolutely," she rasped.  
  
White House Communications Bullpen:Same Day  
  
"Has either of you heard anything from Leo yet?" CJ asked as she walked into Toby's office, where he and Sam were. They were all tired, stressed out, and worried about Donna. Leo had insisted that they all leave the waiting room at around two am that morning to try to get some sleep for the next day. So they had all gone home but naturally none of them could sleep.  
  
"No, nothing," said Toby, his usually gruff voice subdued by his anxiety over Donna. Out of all the people that something bad should happen to, she was at the very bottom of his list. It just wasn't fair that she should have to go through something potentially serious at this point in her life.  
  
"Do you think that's good or bad?" Sam asked quietly, still reeling from the memory of watching his friend collapse.  
  
"Well," started CJ carefully, sitting down next to Sam on the sofa, "I guess it means that she hasn't gotten any worse, which is good."  
  
"But it also means that she probably hasn't woken up yet, which could be bad," finished Toby. He wiped at his tired eyes as the three of them lapsed into silence.  
  
"What did Josh say when you called him?" Sam asked abruptly, turning to Toby.  
  
"When?" he asked.  
  
"Last night, from the hospital," Sam asked as he got up to stretch his aching muscles.  
  
Toby had a curious look on his face. "I didn't call him last night. CJ and I were working on the press statements from the convention at the hospital and than Leo sent us home. Didn't you call him from the plane?"  
  
"No," said Sam defensively, "I was too busy sitting outside Donna's room, waiting for the doctor to leave so I could go in there in case she woke up. You, on the other hand, were meeting with staff and going over a list of campaign stops for the next month," he finished accusingly.  
  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Sam?" Toby asked, walking around his desk to stand near Sam. "That I was any less concerned about Donna than you were? That I was any less scared that something was really wrong with her?" raising his voice an octave higher as he stood in front of Sam.  
  
"Guys, just stop it," CJ said, holding up her hands and moving in between the two men. "All of us are stressed out and we're all worried about Donna. That doesn't mean that you two can go out onto the playground and have a fight during recess. Okay?" The two men looked at each other before retreating, Sam back to the sofa and Toby to his desk. "Alright," CJ sighed after a minute, running a hand through her hair and launching into Press Secretary mode. "If he asks, we didn't call him because we all know how limited his time with Amy is and we didn't want to worry him until we knew anything for sure." She paused and tapped her foot lightly against the floor. Neither Toby nor Sam made a move. "So someone just has to call Josh right now and tell him what happened."  
  
"Or you could just turn around and tell him face to face, save yourself the trouble," a voice from the doorway proclaimed. CJ, Sam, and Toby turned around to see Josh leaning against the doorway, his backpack slung across his shoulder. He looked fairly relaxed but tired and he could immediately sense that something was up.  
  
"What's going on?" he asked as he came into the room, simultaneously reading a memo of some kind. The three of them all looked at each other, trying to gauge what Josh's reaction would be when they told him. "Don't tell me you guys caused some major crisis in the past twenty-four hours I was gone that you now need me to fix," he said jokingly, hoping it was something minor that he could finish before lunch. When no one laughed or tried to retort him, he got the message loud and clear: Something really bad had happened.  
  
"Josh," said Toby carefully, deciding to delve into this slowly. "How long were you standing in the door just then?"  
  
"A minute, why?" he asked putting his backpack down by the sofa and placing the memo on the coffee table, giving Toby his full attention. CJ and Sam both moved to sit down on the sofa and Toby leaned against his desk while Josh remained standing near the door.  
  
"Something happened on the plane last night," Toby said. His eyes left Josh's as he continued. "Donna got really sick and she was brought to GW when we landed."  
  
As soon as Josh had heard the words "Donna" and "GW", he began to get nervous. "What exactly happened?" he asked quietly.  
  
Sam took over for Toby. "She fainted right after take off and she was...um...in and out of consciousness the rest of the flight."  
  
"Wait, she was unconscious on the flight?" Josh asked stunned. A million thoughts raced through his mind. 'Did she hit her head on something? Was it something that she ate? Is she taking medication for something?' he thought to himself as his feet were rooted to the floor of Toby's office. "I need to call her. When did they release her?" he asked.  
  
"From the hospital?" Toby asked. Josh nodded. "They didn't, she's still there. They wanted to keep her there for observation was the last that Leo knew when he called us."  
  
"Leo's with her right now?"  
  
"Yes, Leo and the President both stayed with her," CJ answered. "Leo told us to go home and he promised he'd call when Donna woke up or they had any new news."  
  
"Well has there been any news since then?"  
  
"No, we haven't heard anything," said CJ. "Which could be good."  
  
"Or bad but we were still trying to decide when you walked in," Sam added, making a weak attempt at humor. By the look that everyone gave him he knew instantly that his attempt failed.  
  
Josh shook his head, rubbing his eyes with his palms. "I don't get it, why didn't I get a phone call the minute you guys realized something was wrong?"  
  
"We know how little time you have with Amy and we didn't want to worry you until we knew anything for sure," Toby answered almost in sync with Sam's answer. The two men looked at each other coldly than at the ground.  
  
"You forgot," Josh laughed cynically. "Donna is sick and hospitalized and none of you had the decency to call me!" he practically shouted. "Was I just supposed to find out this morning from the gossip at the coffee maker like a stupid intern or something?!"  
  
"Josh calm down please," CJ, ever the peacemaker, said just as Toby's cell phone started to ring. As Toby answered it, she continued. "It was a hectic night and we were all worried and yes we wrong not to call you. But it wasn't intentional. Now you need to relax because Donna sure as hell isn't going to get any better with you having a nutty right in front of her. Okay?" she finished. Josh nodded slowly and basically fell onto the couch, resting his head in his hands. Toby hung up the phone and looked at them.  
  
"That was Leo," he said. "She just woke up."  
  
"Is she all right?" Josh asked, immediately springing to his feet.  
  
"I don't know, all he said was that she woke up and the doctor was speaking to her," Toby responded. "And that the President was on his way back here. He wants to meet with us."  
  
"When's he going to get here?" asked CJ.  
  
Just then, they heard the familiar wail of sirens that identified that the President was going in through the side entrance. A few minutes later, the four of them were standing in the Executive Office, waiting for the President to arrive. When he did, there was an instantaneous change in stature and manner among them all to accommodate for the enormous presence that is Jed Bartlet.  
  
"Come on in," he said, not even stopping before striding into the Oval Office. "Charlie, get me the memo that the director of the NSA left for me about Qumar and arrange a meeting with State Dept. officials for around noon."  
  
"Yes sir," said Charlie, already moving to complete the tasks before the President finished giving them.  
  
"Is everything all right, Sir?" Toby asked when they all stepped into the office.  
  
The President moved behind his desk, putting on his glasses and reading the memo that Charlie had quickly found and placed on his desk. "Thank you, Charlie," he said as he sat down. "Could you close the door please?"  
  
"Yes, Sir," answered Charlie, moving to leave the room.  
  
"No, no stay Charlie," the President replied when he saw Charlie going through the doorway. "You probably need to hear this too."  
  
A minute passed as the President continued to read the memo and Charlie situated himself on the sofa with Sam. CJ and Toby sat in the sofa opposite them and Josh was standing near one of the armchairs, his arms folded tightly across his chest, his eyes tense. When he was finished reading the memo, the President placed his glasses on his desk and stood up to come around the desk and sit in the armchair closest to the desk.  
  
"Is everything all right, Sir?" Toby asked again, deliberately.  
  
"The Qumari military has been receiving citations from the UN Security Council about its numerous uses of brutal force when breaking up protests in the region," the President said in his soft yet commanding voice. "Koffi Anun wants me to send a representative to the next meeting of the General Assembly in two weeks."  
  
"He meant with Donna, Sir" Josh said impatiently.  
  
"Yeah I know he did," Jed Bartlet sighed. "I was just hoping to avoid that question for as long as I possibly could."  
  
"What's wrong?" Josh demanded. "What's wrong with her?"  
  
"Her doctor thinks that it's something called aplastic anemia but they need to run more tests before they're sure," Jed said, wiping at his tired eyes.  
  
"So they don't know yet? It could be nothing at all right?" Josh asked hopefully.  
  
"No," Jed said quietly. "The doctor, uh Dr. Michael Flynn, is an expert in the field of hematology and he's just waiting for the test results to confirm it before he tells Donna. But he's positive that it's aplastic anemia."  
  
"What's that, some kind of disorder or something?" Sam asked, after the quiet had passed.  
  
"Yeah," the President answered. "It's a blood disorder. It's actually pretty rare but it's generally found in women in Donna's age group. It means her red blood cells are depleting too fast for her body to keep up. That leaves her weak, which is why she's been so tired lately.  
  
"Can it be treated? CJ asked.  
  
"It depends on what stage it's in. In the first two stages, it's treatable through medication and periodic red blood cell transfusions. When it gets into the third stage, a bone marrow transplant is needed and sometimes even a liver transplant and if a suitable match isn't found the disease will go into the fourth stage." Jed bit his lower lip softly before continuing in an even quieter voice. "The disease is terminal in the fourth stage."  
  
"Well what stage is Donna in?" Toby asked.  
  
The President paused before answering. "She's borderline between the third and fourth stages."  
  
Toby cleared his throat. "Well.uh.and that means?"  
  
"If she doesn't get a successful bone marrow transplant in the next few weeks." he said.  
  
"She's gonna die?" finished Josh, looking to the President for confirmation. Jed cast his eyes downward and nodded to the affirmative. Everyone in the room was stilled into silence, each lost in the seriousness of that statement. They were all inadequately prepared for this. Give them a speech to right or a vote to swing; they could all handle that. But losing one of their closest friends to a rare disease? None of them, least of all Josh was anywhere close to being prepared for that.  
  
"Um. do you know if they're going to release her soon, Sir?" asked CJ, her eyes just a little bit watery.  
  
"No," said the President. "They want to keep her there in case there's an emergency. She could have serious problems quickly if this disease isn't properly monitored. They're also going to start giving her daily transfusions to try to reverse the process of the disease. Dr. Flynn says that that can happen occasionally."  
  
"Is she in any pain?" Sam wanted to know.  
  
"They're giving her medication to control it, also to prevent her from having anymore episodes like the one she had on the plane." He paused for a second. "She's very well taken care of there and I placed Secret Service agents outside her door to prevent any unwanted visitors."  
  
"The press knows?" a surprised CJ asked.  
  
"One of the President's closest staffers collapses on Air Force One and is rushed to GW upon landing?" stated Toby. "I think there gonna be a little curious."  
  
"Yeah I'll go talk to her today about releasing statements," CJ said, mentally preparing a list of things that she would need to do. "Does her family know yet?"  
  
"We've been trying to get in touch with them since we landed but we haven't been able to locate anybody," said the President.  
  
Charlie responded with, "I'll pull her personal records, get her emergency contacts."  
  
"Or maybe Margaret or Ginger would know who she'd want to call," added Sam.  
  
"What time is it?" Josh finally asked after remaining silent during the whole exchange.  
  
"It's almost ten o'clock," said Charlie with a glance at his wrist.  
  
"Damn it, I'm gonna be late," said Josh moving towards the door.  
  
"Where are you going?" asked a confused Sam.  
  
"Rittenhower wanted a meeting on sugar subsides in the southeast and I blew him off Friday at the convention so I've got to meet with him for brunch in twenty minutes," Josh replied, heading out the door. "When are we gonna meet again?"  
  
"Josh I don't think that you should take." started Jed.  
  
"Sir if I don't take this meeting, Rittenhower will raise nine kinds of hell when we try to get the education reform bill out of his committee," Josh stated almost immediately putting on the mask of political operative that hid his pain. "That is not something that we want coming up so close to November. If I take the meeting, I can fix this so it won't be an issue.  
  
"Yeah but Josh do you really think that now is the time to." Sam scoffed  
  
"Yes," said the President, looking at Josh carefully. "Meet with him, Josh, but don't make any commitments until you talk with Leo."  
  
"Yessir," said Josh, leaving the room.  
  
The four people in the room all turned to look at the President who had moved back behind his desk, each of them not understanding why he'd just let Josh go and all of them fairly angry about it. Of course, none of them could directly vocalize their anger at him in a way that they wanted too. But they all wanted to know why.  
  
"Sir?" CJ asked. "May I ask why you just did what you did right then?"  
  
"Well first off he's right," the President, opening some folders and scanning the documents inside before signing them. "We do need Rittenhower's support if the EEA is ever going to get out of committee." He put the pen down and took off his reading glasses to look at all of them. "And secondly he's not ready to deal with Donna just yet."  
  
"Not ready to deal with Donna?" asked Sam incredulously. "She's is sick, hospitalized, and she needs him. When he was shot, she was there for him, no questions asked. And now she needs him and he's running away."  
  
"And why do you think that is Sam?" Jed asked, getting frustrated. ""He's scared out of his mind because the most important person in the world to him is lying in a hospital bed dying and there isn't anything he can do to help her! He can't save her but he can save the EEA and you know why?!" Jed took a breath to calm himself down before he continued. "Because that's what Josh does. Something is wrong, so he comes along and fixes it. He can't fix Donna but he can fix the god damn EEA."  
  
Sam nodded, a little taken aback by the President's diatribe. "Yeah, he can," said Sam in calm, yielding voice. "But Donna is a person who needs to fix things too. And she waited fourteen hours in that same waiting room for him. And she was with him for three months before she saw results with him. That was three months of yelling and frustration and pain before he began acting like a human again and then she waited three more months before she could start worrying about herself and not about whether or not she was gonna go into his apartment and find him in a pool of his own blood," he said deliberately. "Now she's the one in that hospital room and instead of being in that waiting room, he's going for to meet with an uptight Republican to discuss farming laws and the Redskins over coffee. You're telling me you're all okay with that?"  
  
"No I'm not," said Toby. "But like the President said, what can we do? We can't drag Josh there kicking and screaming and we can't wave a magic wand and cure Donna."  
  
Sam shook his head, his face looking like he was defeated. "So what do we do?"  
  
Toby looked around the room at the helpless faces of his friends and colleagues. He was feeling a little like it was the night of a major Senate vote and no one would take his phone calls. There was absolutely nothing any of them could do at this point and they all knew it.  
  
"I don't know," answered Toby.  
  
GWU Hospital: Donna's Room (simultaneously)  
  
"How is everyone?" Donna asked when Leo walked back into the room after going to make a phone call back to the White House.  
  
"Okay," he responded, sitting across from Donna in a wide, uncomfortable hospital chair. "They're all worried about you. Everyone's asking to be kept updated on your condition." He stopped and grinned at her. "Hell, even Oliver Babish called to see how you were doing."  
  
"Oh they shouldn't do that, they've got more important things to worry about," she said quietly, her throat still sore from the breathing tube the naval doctor on Air Force One had placed down her throat.  
  
"Donna the President of the United States was down here for almost five hours after he had just received re-nomination at the Democratic National Convention to make sure you were gonna be okay," said Leo, with just the hint of a smile. "I'd say that rates you pretty important on his list of priorities."  
  
Donna shook her head. "I'm just his assistant," she said.  
  
"You're his daughter, Donna, just as much as his own girls are," he told her, not oblivious to the surprised expression she wore on her face when he said it. "You do know that don't you?"  
  
Donna cleared her throat. "So, um, have you heard anything from my family at all?" she asked, clearly uncomfortable with the subject.  
  
"Yeah," said Leo. "You're sister's going to be here by tonight but your brother couldn't catch a flight until tomorrow morning. We, uh, couldn't find your dad at the number that was in your file, do any of you know where he'd be?"  
  
"No," answered Donna. "We don't know where he is." She paused for a second before deciding to continue. "You see, he fought in Vietnam before I was born but he was a ground soldier and he's had.problems for a while now." She gave Leo a little half smile. "Most of the time he stays close to home but sometimes.well uh it takes some.we have to wait until someone calls to tell us where." she trailed off.  
  
"It's okay," said Leo raising his hand. "You don't need to go into this. It's your family; you don't have to explain it to me or anybody else."  
  
"Yeah," Donna replied nodding her head. She wiped at her eye, swapping away the almost nonexistent tear. The two of them remained silent like that for a few minutes; Donna picked imaginary lint off her blanket and Leo began studying his shoes as if they held the secrets of the universe. Donna was finally the one to break the silence by asking, "Has my doctor talked to you yet at all?"  
  
Leo looked up at her. "Hmm?"  
  
"I said 'has my doctor talked to you yet at all'," Donna repeated. "About me, I mean."  
  
"Oh," said Leo, trying to stall. "No, no that's.that's between you two. You know doctor/patient confidentiality and all."  
  
"Yeah except he did talk to you and the President before you knew that I was awake," she said pointedly, looking straight at him. "What did he say to you? Did he tell you what he thinks is wrong with me?"  
  
Leo nodded slowly. "Some stuff, nothing real specific. Just that you've got some kind of blood disease that's pretty rare."  
  
"And that I'm going to die in 4 to 6 weeks if I don't get a bone marrow transplant, right?" she finished, casting her eyes downward.  
  
Leo reached out and took her hand in his. He could see that she was becoming very distressed about this and knew that it wasn't good for her. So he did the best he could to try to calm her. "Donna, look at me," he said. "It is not going to come that okay? You're gonna be fine."  
  
"Yeah Leo, whatever you say," she answered, still not looking at him.  
  
"No, Donna I'm serious." he began sternly.  
  
"And so am I," she cut off. "I need a bone marrow transplant so the new marrow will begin "teaching" my body to make more red blood cells. If it doesn't happen soon, I'll die. That's not a hypothetical, that's a fact. And the odds are not in my favor of a transplant working, even if they do find a correct match, which is still very unlikely giving that I have one of the rarest blood types in the world."  
  
"Oh screw odds makers, they don't know anything," Leo replied. "Odds makers have predicted the following: the New England Patriots to finish last in the AL East, the NASDAQ to drop 1,000 points by the end of the year, and in 1998 they picked Republican Senator Warren McGregor to win the presidency in a landslide victory. Any of those things happen at all?"  
  
"First," Donna began. "I hate football. Second, I don't play the stock market. And third." she paused. "Well I can't come up with a third right now. But it still doesn't change my condition in any way."  
  
"All I'm saying," began Leo, "is that you shouldn't put too much faith in playing the odds. They're gonna find a match for you, the transplant will work, you'll be fine, and then you can go back to working sixteen hours a day on a presidential re-election campaign," he said.  
  
Donna nodded. "So what do I do until then, Leo?"  
  
Leo could see that the conversation was beginning to wear on her and that she needed a good answer. She needed not necessarily an honest answer, just a good one. He just didn't have one. So he told her the same thing that Jed and the others were telling themselves right then.  
  
"I really don't know what to do," he regrettably, honestly replied. 


	2. Chapter 2

Josh's Apartment: That Night  
  
"What are you doing here, Sam?" Josh tiredly asked the figure behind his door when he looked through the peephole.  
  
"Josh, just let me in okay. I'll explain inside," Sam said, pounding on the door a second later when he got no response.  
  
"Alright, alright, come in. Jesus, you're gonna wake up Mr. Myers if you keep doing that."  
  
Sam looked confused as he entered the doorway. "I thought he died like three months ago."  
  
"My point exactly. Now what's up? Is everything alright?"  
  
"No," said Sam shaking his head and removing his coat. "Everything is not alright. Donna is not alright, Josh."  
  
As the words left Sam's mouth, Josh felt terror well up inside of him. "What happened to her? Did she have an episode or whatever it's called?" he asked franticly. When he got no immediate response, he started towards Sam. "God damn it Sam! What the hell happened?!"  
  
"Josh she's okay!" Sam yelled back to calm him down. "She's still at the hospital but she's okay for now." Sam watched Josh release a giant breath as the relief washed over him. It made Sam remember his purpose for coming here. "Why didn't you go see her?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Donna," Sam said. "Why didn't you go see her in the hospital?" Josh avoided his gaze and turned away from his friend. Sam could tell this was a conversation that Josh did not want to have but he plowed ahead anyway. "She needs you there, Josh. She's hurt and lonely and absolutely terrified of what might happen to her."  
  
"Nothing's gonna happen to her," Josh said quietly. "She's gonna be fine."  
  
"She might not be, Josh."  
  
"But she will be, Sam."  
  
"But she probably won't be and you need to accept that."  
  
"What are you saying?" Josh asked, his voice like that of a small child scared of the monster under the bed. "Did the doctor's find something else that's wrong?"  
  
Sam sighed. "Nothing's changed. Donna's in the same condition tonight that she was this morning. But that doesn't change the fact that if she doesn't get a bone marrow transplant soon, she'll." Sam trailed off. Josh was leaning back against the wall of his living room, looking like he wished he were anyplace else but this room. Even with all the anger that he felt for Josh right now, he was still Sam's best friend and he felt horrible for Josh. "Why did you take the meeting with Rittenhower?"  
  
Josh shrugged his shoulders. "Rittenhower." he began, searching for the right answer. "Rittenhower, I couldn't screw up. I mean I could walk into that restaurant, sit down next to him, and I'd know exactly what to do to get what I wanted." Josh paused and moved to sit on his couch where Sam joined him. "If I walk into that hospital room, how do I know I'm gonna be okay when I see her? How do I know I'm not gonna say something that's gonna make this worse for her? I just." he started laughing ruefully. "This is the first time in my life were I walk into the room and I have no idea what to say."  
  
"Did you care what she said when you got shot?" Sam immediately asked.  
  
"What?"  
  
"When you were shot and you were in the hospital, Donna came to see you. Did you care what she said to you?"  
  
"No, of course not."  
  
"Not even just a little?"  
  
"I didn't care what she said to me, I just cared that she was there," Josh proclaimed, realizing the impact of his words as soon as he said them. Sam looked at him thoughtfully.  
  
"You know," Sam started, "Visiting hours at GW ended about two hours ago but I'm pretty sure they'd make an exception for you."  
  
"Don't you think she'd be too tired for visitor?"  
  
"Josh," Sam chided him gently.  
  
"I'm not trying to stall," Josh defended. "I just don't want her to be inconvienced."  
  
"Believe me when I tell you she won't mind in the least."  
  
GWU Hospital: Outside Donna's room [1 hour later]  
  
Josh stood quietly outside Donna's room, wondering what he was gonna find when he opened the door and walked inside. It had taken a lot just to get Josh to this point and he didn't want to screw anything up. Sam had left Josh's apartment after Josh had promised him he'd go as soon as he finished a briefing memo for the morning. Sam, immediately recognizing Josh's infamous avoidance behavior, insisted on driving Josh to the hospital himself. Once they'd gotten there, Josh had declared that he was fine and Sam could go home but Sam, of course, wanted to see Donna too so he'd ridden the elevator with him.  
  
Now Josh stood where he'd been standing for the past fifteen minutes, trying to gather up the nerve to walk into that room. Sam had gone to the cafeteria as soon as they got to the room claiming that he was hungry but he really just wanted to give the two of them a few minutes alone together. He had thought that Josh would be able to go in and be with Donna. But he couldn't even make himself walk through the door. He just stood there, waiting for something to kick in that would give him the courage to at least put one foot in front of the other.  
  
"Excuse me, Sir," came a voice from behind Josh, startling him. He turned to see a doctor in a white lab coat and flannel shirt and trousers standing before him. "May I help you?"  
  
"Um.No I was just, ah waiting for." he stuttered, gesturing with his hands.  
  
"Are you a friend of the patient?" the doctor asked, eyeing him suspiciously. Mr. McGarry and the Secret Service had warned Dr. Flynn that reporters might try to get access to Donna. "If you're not, I suggest that you leave before I'm forced to call security," he continued sternly.  
  
Josh felt like he had literally swallowed his tongue down the back of his throat. He couldn't form a coherent response to the doctor's inquiries. Just as Dr. Flynn made a move towards the phone on the front desk, a man in plain clothes approached the doctor. Josh immediately recognized him as one of the agents who was regularly on the President's detail. He and the doctor shared a few hushed words, while Josh stood aimlessly outside the door, before the doctor turned and walked back towards Josh.  
  
"So you're Mr. Lyman," the doctor said, extending his hand towards Josh. "I'm terribly sorry about that but I wasn't sure what you looked like or when you'd be coming in."  
  
"How did you know I was coming here?" Josh asked confused.  
  
The doctor gave him a small smile as he led him back towards Donna's door. "Leo McGarry said that we should be expecting you to come and see Donna anytime now, as did Sam Seaborn, CJ Cregg, Toby Zieg."  
  
"Who are you?" Josh abruptly cut in, stopping the two of them before they could reach Donna's door.  
  
"Oh I'm sorry," the man chuckled lightly. "I'm Dr. Michael Flynn; I'm Donna's primary physician. How do you do?"  
  
Josh swallowed and took a minute. "I'm fine," he replied dryly.  
  
The two men continued standing outside the door for a few more minutes, doing nothing. Dr. Flynn was waiting for Josh to make the first move and Josh was too nervous to do anything. Dr. Flynn finally decided to break the monotonous silence.  
  
"Getting kind of late, don't you think?"  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"I mean, it's almost 9:30 and Donna's had a pretty long day. Don't you think you should go see her before she gets too tired for visitors?"  
  
"Yeah," said Josh, still making no move to enter the room.  
  
Dr. Flynn gave him a long, hard once-over. "There's nothing to be scared of in there."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I mean you don't need to be afraid of her. She may be sick but she's still the same Donna you've always known her to be."  
  
"But what if later." Josh trailed off.  
  
"There's no later in that room, Josh," the doctor said wisely. "There's just today. That's all." Josh looked thoughtful as he processed the doctor's words. "Now go on in and say hello. She's been waiting for you." With that, the doctor turned and walked back towards what appeared to be his office. Just before he closed the door, he looked back and saw Josh hesitate for moment than walk into the room. The doctor smiled and walked into his office.  
  
Donna's Room  
  
Donna was lying on her side, her back to the door, when she heard the door open. She assumed that it was either her sister arriving or her doctor checking on her at the late hour, so she untangled herself from the sheets and turned around. However, when she saw Josh standing in the room, she felt a strange surge of relief course through her. He wasn't completely unconcerned with her and for that she was grateful. She didn't think she'd ever be able to get over the disappointment of learning he had opted to take a meeting than come and see her, as Sam had testily told her that afternoon when he, Toby, and CJ had come, separately of course, to wish her well. While Donna could certainly understand Josh's negative emotions involving hospitals, particularly this one, she had nonetheless been crushed when he hadn't wanted to see her.  
  
"Hi," Donna said quietly  
  
"Hey," responded Josh just as quietly, making no move to come near the bed.  
  
Donna propped herself up on the bed the best she could. "What are you doing here so late?"  
  
"Oh I'm sorry," said Josh nervously. "I shouldn't have.it's pretty late, you probably need your rest.I can come." he fumbled in a way that made Donna think that he didn't really want to be here with her. That surge of relief that she had felt a few minutes ago was suddenly depleting faster than a popped balloon.  
  
"If you don't want to be here, Josh, you can leave," she said abruptly, but quietly. "If you have something else more important that needs to be done, you can go."  
  
"Donna, I just."  
  
"Have a meeting you need to prep for, a luncheon to go to, a cat to rescue out of tree, fine go, Josh. You have too much to do to be here, that's fine," she said tiredly.  
  
"It's not that I don't want to, it's just..." he said making a few cautious steps towards the bed.  
  
"That you have bad memories about this place that make you very uncomfortable to be here. Josh, it's okay, I understand," she cut in once again.  
  
Josh pursed his lips together and smiled tightly, a sign that meant he struggling for control. Donna, however, was so intent on getting Josh out of the room so he'd be okay that she didn't notice the telltale signs.  
  
"Donna," Josh began again sitting in one of the chairs by the bed, "What I'm trying to say is."  
  
"Look, for the last time Josh." Donna interrupted.  
  
"Can I please just finish one sentence in this conversation?! Would that be at all possible, Donna?" Josh exclaimed, moving forward in his seat. Donna closed her mouth and looked expectedly at Josh, giving him her rapt attention. Josh, on the other hand, found the staring and the silence unnerving coming from Donna.  
  
"What are you doing, Donna?" he asked questioningly.  
  
"I'm giving you my full and undivided attention, Joshua," she responded, gently slipping the two of them back into bantering mode.  
  
"Is it possible for you to that without the staring?"  
  
"No. My mother always said that it's important to look at a person when you're having a conversation."  
  
"Alright," Josh sighed with defeat but gave Donna a small smile. She gave it right back to him and Josh saw for the first time how vulnerable she was, how scared. Sam was right; all this really was taking a toll on her. Josh instantly felt the need to protect her, take care of her. He didn't know it, but it was the exact same feeling that Donna had had when she first saw Josh after his surgery.  
  
"Listen," Josh said, reaching out and taking one of hands in his. "The reason I didn't come was because I couldn't stand to see you in."  
  
"Donna? Are you awake sweetie?" Donna groaned at hearing the familiar voice. Under normal circumstances she loved to hear Nicole's voice but right now she wanted nothing more than to get up and strangle her sister.  
  
"Donna, are all right?" the voice spoke again, this time revealing its source. Josh turned around and saw a woman whose face he'd seen for years through a picture sitting on Donna's desk looking at him for the first time. He could already tell that she wasn't quite as tall as Donna. This woman's hair was shorter and darker than Donna's and her eyes were a catlike green compared to Donna's pale blue. Yet the two women shared the same nose, cheekbones, and full lips. Also, it appeared to Josh, the same endearing yet annoying sense of taking care of everyone else.  
  
"Nic, I'm fine," Donna said exasperated, having already felt the effects of her sister's over protectiveness over the phone. "Can't you at least introduce yourself to strangers who are in the room before you start controlling my life for the next fifty years?"  
  
Nic rolled her eyes at her little sister and took off her sunglasses. "I'm Nicole Moss-Braun. I'm Donna's older sister."  
  
"Joshua Lyman," Josh said extending his hand in greeting.  
  
"I know, pleasure to finally meet you," Nicole answered hurried, shaking his hand and trying to remove her coat at the same time. Once that was accomplished, she proceeded to untie the kerchief that she was wearing, place her briefcase and bag on the other chair near Donna's bed, and go about adjusting the blankets on the bed.  
  
Donna bristled at her sister's attention. "Nic, I'm fine would you please sit down."  
  
"Where's the doctor, I want to talk to him," Nicole said, completely ignoring Donna, going over to her tote bag and rifling through it.  
  
Donna sighed. "He's in his office."  
  
"Why isn't he in here? What's he doing?"  
  
"Performing Satanic animal sacrifices. Do you have any gum?"  
  
"Yes, but you can't have any."  
  
"Why the hell not?"  
  
"Because A). I don't know if it's good for you and B). You're being a brat right now and as you very well know, brats don't get any gum."  
  
"The level of immaturity that you repeatedly sink to continues to surprise even me you sad, pathetic, little woman."  
  
"I know you are but what am I?"  
  
"Nicolette Morgaine."  
  
"Donnatella Igraine."  
  
Josh watched this light, sarcastic exchange between the two sisters and wondered if they even remembered that he was in the room. It was like they were on their own wave link and Josh felt that if he spoke up, he'd be intruding on it. He was saved from this however when Sam walked into the room.  
  
"Alright you made it in here," Sam said cheerfully, giving Josh a smile. Donna and Nicole looked up, surprised, almost as if they realized for the first time that Josh had been in the room the whole time.  
  
"Yeah, I did," giving Donna an apologetic look as he answered. Donna smiled at him so he assumed that he'd been forgiving for whatever they'd been semi- arguing about before Nicole came in. "Actually, I was getting ready to leave. Let Donna and her sister have some time alone together."  
  
Sam looked to the woman standing opposite of him. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that Donna had any family coming in this late."  
  
"I caught the first flight out that I could."  
  
"Yes, of course. Sam Seaborn, how do you do?"  
  
"Nicole Moss-Braun and I'd be doing a lot better if my sister didn't have a life threatening illness at the moment."  
  
"Yeah we all would," Sam answered hesitantly, taken aback by Nicole's straightforward way of talking. "Listen Josh why don't we get going. I'm sure these two ladies have some talking to do." He walked over to Donna and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek. "We'll be by sometime tomorrow if we can escape from the office. But if not we'll call you at least twenty times each."  
  
"Oh I'm looking forward to it already," Donna replied with a smile.  
  
"Good to know," Sam said. He turned to Nicole. "It was very nice meeting you; I just wish the circumstances could have been better."  
  
"Likewise," she answered, shaking the hand that he held out to her.  
  
Sam walked to the door and waited for Josh to follow him. Josh was still standing near Donna's bed, reluctant to leave her now even though he knew that she wanted some time alone with her sister. He picked up her hand and gave it a squeeze. He didn't say a word to her, just smiled softly at her before setting her hand down and walking to the door, acknowledging Nicole with a nod towards her. He and Sam than walked out of the room and back into the real world that Donna so desperately wanted to be a part of once again.  
  
"Well," Nicole said, going to sit down on the side of Donna's bed, "they seem really nice."  
  
"Yeah," answered Donna, still thinking of the simple smile that Josh gave her. It might not have seemed like a big deal to Nicole or Sam but Donna recognized that smile that Josh gave her as one that he gave the people he loved when he wanted to reassure them that everything was alright. She'd seem him give it to his mother countless times during his recovery. And now he gave it her, during a time when she'd need his assurances that he was all right.  
  
"Donna," she heard Nicole say to her. "You okay?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine."  
  
"You looked kinda like you'd gone to visit Never-Never Land for a second."  
  
"I'm okay," Donna said, squeezing Nicole's hand, trying to ease the troubled look that her sister had in her eyes. "So have you heard from T.J. at all?"  
  
"Yeah I did," Nicole answered, getting up and going over to her briefcase. She pulled out a think, black leather appointment book where Donna knew she kept all the details of her perfectly scheduled life and other important info in. "His flight should be getting in at around 7:55 tomorrow morning, if he doesn't run into any bad weather from now until then. I'll call him on his cell later and tell him to take a cab here as soon as he lands."  
  
"Oh, I almost forgot," Donna suddenly said. "I've been trying to get in touch with Lily since I got here but she's not at home and her office says she's on vacation. Can you try to get a hold of her? You know, just tell her what's going on?"  
  
"Sure," Nicole sighed over dramatically. "I will do this for you and I will tell you why."  
  
"Nic," Donna groaned good-naturedly.  
  
"For you are my sister," Nicole continued, undaunted. "You are ill and I wish only to make you happy and comfortable during this difficult time. And even if this means conversing with the Bride of Satan herself, I shall do it without question or complaint."  
  
"You know, you've been my sister for twenty-eight years, she's been my best friend for twenty-two years, and not once during this entire time have the two of you ever had a pleasant conversation," Donna said with a smile.  
  
"That's because," Nicole began, smiling back, "Ms. Lillian Amelia Irving of Stratford, England is an unbelievable pain in the ass and I."  
  
"Am an even greater pain in the ass," Donna finished giggling with her sister like they used to when they were girls.  
  
"Whatever you say, your Highness," Nicole said, in a dreadful English accent.  
  
Donna nodded. "So where you guys staying at? If you want, I'll use my puppy dogface on Josh, he can probably get you guys a couple of rooms at the Waldrof."  
  
"We're not staying at a hotel, we're staying right here," Nicole said, looking surprised that Donna even thought they wouldn't be staying near her at all times. "They have private rooms for families of patients. I already brought most of my stuff up there."  
  
"Oh now isn't that going to fun," Donna said, sarcasm dripping from her voice like rain from a tree leaf. "Are you and T.J. going to take turns keeping me locked up or are you going to be tag teaming me to an early grave?"  
  
Donna realized at once what a poor choice of words she had made when Nicole flinched as if someone had slapped her across the face. "Please don't say anything like that," Nicole said seriously. She sat down on the bed again besides Donna and grasped Donna's hand in hers. "Something is really wrong with you and you might not be okay. So please forgive me if I'm going to be a little over anxious and protective of you for the next few weeks. You're the only sister I have and I'm not losing you, got it?"  
  
"Got it," Donna answered sincerely. The two sisters remained quiet like that for a few more minutes before Nicole spoke.  
  
"I want to fly her out here."  
  
"Who?"  
  
Nicole gave her a pointed look. "You know who I mean, Donnatella," she said quietly.  
  
"Absolutely not. Not under any circumstances," Donna said shaking her head emphatically.  
  
"But what if she's a match and."  
  
"I said no," Donna cut her off forcefully. "She's not coming here. You don't call Mena and tell her. And if Mena calls and asks, you don't tell her then either."  
  
Nicole looked at her incredulously. "You want me to lie to Mena? You actually want me to lie."  
  
"No," interrupted Donna, "I don't want you to lie to Mena; I need you to lie to her." Donna paused. "I don't want her to see me like this," she said softly. "She doesn't deserve that. Or maybe I'm selfish, you know just worried it'll hurt me too much," Donna said choking up a little from emotion. "Either way, no matter what, she doesn't come to DC," Donna stared her older sister down. "Got it?"  
  
Nicole closed her eyes and shook her head. "Got it," she answered detachedly.  
  
Josh's Office: One Week Later  
  
Josh was huddled over his desk late that night, going over what he thought to be a thoroughly unimportant briefing memo about landfills in Midwestern areas. The only reason that he was here this late was because he had taken the afternoon off to go with CJ to visit with Donna. She no longer felt the uneasiness about being hospitalized that she had had when she was first admitted but Josh went to see her more for his own peace of mind than hers. It eased him to see that she still was okay, still in high spirits and that she didn't appear to be getting any worse. Dr. Flynn had been administering a daily regimen of packed red blood cell transfusions for Donna. It wouldn't eliminate the need for her to get a bone marrow transplant but it would give the doctors more time to find her a suitable match. Both her sister and her brother, whom had arrived two days ago after being held up by a nasty storm but who Josh had still yet to meet, had not been matches. Numerous members of the White House staff, including Josh, CJ, and Sam, had also been tested but had also not been matches. Dr. Flynn was now conducting a search through the national registry to see if he could find a match for Donna but so far the search had been fruitless. He had assured Josh and the others many times that it would take some time for them to find a donor if someone in her immediate family was not a match but they all also knew that it was time that Donna did not have.  
  
"I thought I'd find you here," proclaimed a voice from the doorway. Josh looked up to find Leo leaning against the doorjamb, dressed in the same clothes that he'd been in yesterday only slightly more rumpled than he usually looked. Josh thought it might have had something to do with the combination of overseeing a re-election campaign, trying to pass an important education reform bill through Congress, and worrying himself to death about one of his staff members. Josh knew, like few did, that underneath Leo's gruff exterior there was a compassionate man who took it upon himself to take care of every member of his staff that he could.  
  
"Yeah, I was just reviewing a memo on.something that seems to be important to someone," he trailed off with a slight smile.  
  
Leo nodded, moving to sit in the visitor chair. "So how you been holding up?" he asked.  
  
"I'm good," Josh said automatically, gratefully putting the memo aside.  
  
"Good," Leo replied. While Leo did feel for Josh and what he was going through, there was still a country to run and an election to win. "Do you have the Southeastern polling samples I asked Joey to pull?"  
  
"Uh, yeah somewhere," Josh answered, rifling around the disaster area that was his desk. Folders and papers were strewn every which way, fast food containers littered the legs of the desk, and magazines peaked out from every corner. While Josh continued searching for the missing numbers, Leo spied a folder that bore the symbol of the AMA on it. Curious, he opened it and looked through it. Inside was a plethora of information about aplastic anemia: Causes, symptoms, age groups, treatment programs, doctors who specialized in the field of hematology; everything anyone could ever want to know about this disease was in Leo's hands.  
  
"Been doing a little extra credit work, have we?" Leo asked, holding up the folder.  
  
Josh looked up and saw Leo with the folder in his hand. He felt embarrassed for a second, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But then he remembered why he had had the information pulled in the first place and he felt for annoyed at Leo for, what it seemed to Josh, prying.  
  
"I'm researching the disease a little," Josh said evenly. "To see if there's something in there her doctor may have missed."  
  
"Oh, something he may have missed," Leo scoffed. "Tell me Josh, can you remind me what I sent you for a gift upon learning that not only had you gotten a law degree from Harvard, but that you had also received your medical degree from Boston University?"  
  
"Leo, what is the harm in trying to do something more?" Josh asked exasperated.  
  
"Nothing," answered Leo. "As long as there's more to actually do. Donna has one the best doctors in the world treating her; the President made sure of that. If Dr. Flynn says that they're doing all they can for her right now, I'm gonna chose to believe him because he knows more about this than I'll ever know."  
  
Josh leaned his head back against his chair and sighed. "There's got to be something I can do to help her."  
  
"You already are. You're there for her now when she really needs you."  
  
"But what if that's not enough?"  
  
"Sometimes it has to be." When Josh didn't answer, Leo decided that now was the time to venture into territory he had previously promised himself he would never go into.  
  
"How's Amy, Josh?" he asked carefully.  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Amy," Leo repeated. "How are things with you two?"  
  
"Oh, things are.fine I guess," said Josh noncommittally. "To tell you the truth, I haven't really talked to her since that fundraiser after the convention."  
  
"You mean since you found out Donna was sick?"  
  
"Well," said Josh, thinking back, "Yeah, I guess so." He looked thoughtfully at Leo. "I'll call her tonight after I call Dr. Flynn."  
  
"She's your girlfriend, Josh," said Leo, deciding to play a little devil's advocate. "Don't you think that she takes priority over calling your assistant's doctor?"  
  
"Well I don't mean it like that Leo, I just meant that."  
  
"That you're more concerned about Donna than you are about Amy, a woman for whom you claim to have feelings."  
  
"What do you mean 'claim'," a confused Josh cut in.  
  
"Yet who you haven't even spoken to in almost five days," Leo plowed ahead, hoping that some of what he was saying was getting through.  
  
"Well I don't think that it's really any of you business, Leo but I do have feelings for Amy," Josh said irritated. He paused and swallowed. "I do have feelings for Amy," Josh said again, more for himself than for Leo before going back to look for the folder Leo had originally come for.  
  
Leo looked at him. "The same feelings that you have for Donna?"  
  
That comment threw Josh off. He had really tried not to think about the situation with Amy, it was taking a lot out of him just to be worrying about Donna. If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he hadn't thought thoroughly about anything since Donna got sick. It was like his mind suddenly had tunnel vision and she was the only thing that his mind was capable of focusing on. It had never been like that with him before, for anyone. Even when his father was sick, he was able to distract himself for a little while each day. And that had been an even more stressful time professionally because he was getting a complete unknown elected President. Now that the President's numbers were looking good again, some of the pressure was off. But even with that going for him, with Donna, the thought that something could happen to her consumed him. He'd been a mess since he first heard Toby tell him that she was sick but he had been putting on a pretty good front. At least he thought he had been. But now, with the way Leo was looking at him and the thoughts that were running through his head, Josh was sure that he had been deluding himself for a while now, about more things than one.  
  
"What do I do, Leo?" Josh asked quietly. "What am I supposed to do?"  
  
"About what, Josh?" Leo responded, knowing that Josh needed to come to this realization on his own without his help.  
  
"About everything. About Donna, about Amy, about me feeling this way. What do I do?" he asked again, his eyes pleading with his mentor for guidance, like a child who just found out how cruel this world really is.  
  
Leo swallowed the small lump in his throat that came with seeing Josh in this much distress. He really did love Josh like he was his own son. "I can't tell you that, Josh. You've got to figure this one out on your own, kid." He got up out of his seat and turned to leave, reaching the doorway before Josh called out to him.  
  
"Leo?"  
  
He turned around. "Yeah?"  
  
Josh gave him a small, half smile. "It's her isn't?" He chuckled humorlessly. "It's been her this whole time, right in front of me, and I never even knew it." Josh sighed. "I guess I shouldn't say I didn't know it, I just chose not to acknowledge it."  
  
Leo nodded slowly. "Yeah," he said quietly. "So now that you do chose to acknowledge, the question is, what are you gonna do about it?" he asked before leaving the room and leaving Josh alone with his thoughts.  
  
Donna's Room - Two Hours Later  
  
"I don't understand why you're doing this, Donna," Nicole said, pacing back and forth through the sizable, private room that Donna occupied. Colorful arrays of flowers and "Get Well" cards littered every inch of table space that could be found and balloon arrangements and small stuffed animals occupied the rest of the room.  
  
Donna sighed, looking up from the magazine that she was pretending to leaf through. "Yes you do, Nic," she said, tiredly. "You just don't agree with it."  
  
Nicole started nodding emphatically at her. "Yes, I don't agree with it," Nicole repeated, grateful that she finally appeared to be making some headway. "She could be a match; she could save your life! And all you have to do is pick up the goddamn phone and call Mena! But will you do that, no. No, because Donnatella Moss is always right about everything and the rest of us should just shut up and go along with whatever she wishes!"  
  
"It's more complicated than that and you know it. Look, we've been arguing about this for the past three days and neither of us has gotten anywhere. Obviously, we're not going to get anywhere tonight. Now will you please let this go and keep your voice down?" Donna asked covering her eyes with her hands.  
  
Nicole stopped pacing and turned to look at their brother, who was sitting passively in a chair near Donna. "Well, T.J.?" she asked icily. "Care to offer any opinions at all on this matter?"  
  
Tomasso Arthur Moss Jr. had been sitting in the more comfortable guest chair, which the hospital had moved into the room when they saw how many guests that Donna was receiving, for the past half hour, not saying anything, just trying to stay out of his sisters' way like always. He looked like their mother, sounded like their father, and was a mixture of both his sisters' personalities. He lived closer to Nicole and saw her more often but if he had to say, he was closer with Donna than he was with anyone in the family. T.J. loved both of his sisters more than anything but there was this bond between him and Donna that had existed since childhood that nothing had ever been able to sever. He understood her better than anyone else in the world and vice versa. Which was why this was a conversation he didn't want to be involved in.  
  
"Bella," he said, turning to Donna and using the family's lifelong nickname for her. "I understand why you don't want to call Mena, I really do. And in most cases, I'd respect your decision not to involve her. But."  
  
"Oh my God, not you too," Donna broke in, leaning her head back against the pillows.  
  
"Yes, me too," T.J. said. "I agree with Nicole, we gotta call her."  
  
"Well, I think it's wonderful that you two agree on this," Donna responded sarcastically. "Really, I'm happy for you two, I hope this brings you even closer together. Fortunately for me, your agreement on the matter doesn't factor into this decision in any way. It's my choice what to do and I chose not call Mena."  
  
"Donna, would you just listen to us for one minute?" T.J. asked, getting annoyed and running his hands through his short, brown hair. "We know why you don't want her involved and we understand that position, we really do. We've always understood your decisions regarding this. And we've always covered for you when you needed to lie about it." Donna opened her mouth to cut in but T.J. put up his hand to silence her. Nicole came over to the bed. She took one Donna's hands and one of T.J's hands and put them in her own. Her brother and sister followed suit and Nicole took over for T.J.  
  
"We're not talking about a wedding or a funeral that you need us to make up so you can leave DC without anyone getting suspicious," she said quietly. "We're talking about your life. And unless we find you a bone marrow match soon you'll." Nicole trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. The three siblings remained quiet, just sitting there, all holding hands in the semi- darkness like they used when they were children. Then, they were huddled under piles of blankets and singing old standards during thunderstorms that rattled the house. Here, the storms were not visible but metaphorical. However, they were still just as scary and just as powerful.  
  
"I can't," Donna sniffed finally, wiping at the tears slowly falling down her cheeks. "I understand all your reasons and believe me, they are valid reasons. I even agree with some of them, to tell you the truth." She shook her head. "I just can't do it." She looked each of them square in the eye separately. "Promise me that you won't either."  
  
"Bella." T.J. started.  
  
"I could die," Donna said brusquely. Both T.J. and Nicole's faces paled at hearing Donna utter those three fearful words. "I could be dead in few more weeks," she continued in a gentler tone. "This could be the last thing I ever ask of either you. Please honor it."  
  
Before Nicole or T.J. could answer her, there was a knock on the door. A second later, Josh's head appeared in the doorway. He had decided to come on a lark, after he talked with Leo, and left the office before he had a chance to second-guess himself. Glancing around at the faces in the room, Josh could tell that he had just interrupted something.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said apologetically. "I didn't realize that you were all here this late. I can come back in the morning," he said, heading back towards the hallway.  
  
"No," said Donna. "That's okay, we were done. Nicole and T.J. were just leaving." She looked at both of them again. "Right?"  
  
Nicole rubbed at her forehead. "Yeah," she said quietly, dejectedly.  
  
"Uh, I'm sorry. Who exactly are you?" T.J. asked curiously, looking at Josh.  
  
"Oh, Josh Lyman. You must be T.J., nice to finally meet you," Josh said, shaking T.J.'s hand.  
  
"Same here," he answered, returning Josh's handshake. There was an awkward silence for a moment before T.J. broke it. "I, uh, didn't know what you looked like so."  
  
"My little brother here spends much of his time in the vast wildernesses of the world, so he's not always up to speed on the current events in his sisters' lives," Donna said lightly.  
  
T.J. gave her a forced smile. "I'm a freelance, wildlife photographer. I spend about as much time at a desk as you spend outdoors, from what Donna tells me," he teased Josh.  
  
Josh laughed at this. "I'd disagree with you but I fear that my skin tones would give me away."  
  
Donna smiled at him. "So what's up?" she asked.  
  
"Um, I just." Josh started, unsure of what to do now that he was here, and getting unnerved by the fact that it appeared he'd have to do this in front of an audience. "I, uh, wanted to, ah um, talk to you about."  
  
"You know, it's kinda late," said Nicole, sensing that Josh wanted to talk to Donna about something private. "I think I'm gonna head upstairs and try to sleep for a couple hours." She gathered the trash that she had accumulated through the dinner that the three of them had shared. She threw it in the wastebasket and came back to her sister to kiss her goodnight. "Night, sweetie. Don't stay up too late, you've have treatment at seven tomorrow."  
  
Donna rolled her eyes at her. "Yes, mom," she said. Before Nicole could leave, Donna pulled her down for a hug. While in that position, Donna quietly repeated to her, "Please honor it."  
  
Nicole swallowed back her tears before whispering back, "I really hope you know what you're doing, Bella." She turned to the men. "Come on, squirt, let's go," she said to T.J.  
  
"Actually, I'm not that tired I think I'll hang around," said T.J., going back over to sit in the chair. While he was one of the most sensitive guys a girl could meet, good with romance he was not. Though given both his sisters' penchant for selecting Neanderthalic, uncaring idiots, [and in Nicole's case, actually marrying and divorcing one], a person could argue that this trait was actually genetic.  
  
Nicole bit back her lip to quench the laugh that threatened to escape. "T.J.," she said again more forcefully, using the voice she used to use with him when they were kids and he refused to leave the comic book store when told. "Let's go," Nicole repeated, throwing in a glare for good measure. T.J. got the message that time and went over to say good-bye to Donna. He nodded a good-bye to Josh and met his sister in the doorway. As they were leaving she said under her breath, "And you wonder why you can never get a second date."  
  
Once they were alone, Josh turned to look at Donna. She was still unfailingly beautiful in Josh's opinion. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a slick ponytail with one of those puffy elastic things, though her hair had never needed a fancy style or attachment to make him love it and her blue eyes, though tired and red from worry, could still shine brighter to him than a thousand light bulbs. The flimsy hospital gown had been replaced by a sturdy, flannel pajama set from CJ, who was much better with women's sizes than she was with men's. While to the average person, Donna might look completely healthy, sans the numerous IVs, Josh noticed subtle changes in her. The alabaster skin that she was so proud of seemed a shade paler than normal and she had neither the desire nor the ability to put on the light amount of makeup that she usually wore. Her voice was still gravely, even after five days, and she was not always up to conversation when he visited her. This caused him no small amount of distress, because Josh was actually beginning to see signs of the illness that was slowly taken over her. All of his emotions washed over him then and he made a decision at that moment that would change his life.  
  
"Josh?" he heard her ask him. "Josh, are you okay? I've been talking to you for a few minutes now and you haven't said a word."  
  
He ignored her and went to sit down on the side of her bed. Donna's questioning gaze didn't discourage him. Josh simply took her face in his hands and laid a gentle kiss on her lips. When he pulled back, his face only inches from her, he looked deep into her eyes and said the words he had just realized he'd always wanted to say to her.  
  
"I love you." 


	3. Chapter 3

Donna's Room: The Next Morning  
  
Donna awoke the next morning to find the first rays of sunlight peeking in through the blinds of her windows. She turned her head towards the window and saw the dark sapphire color of the night sky slowly fade into a soft orange as the sun made its presence known. Donna struggled to lean up on her elbows to try to catch a better glimpse of the sunrise. It was so simple yet so beautiful at the same time. Donna tried to remember the last time that she had ever just watched it. She was disappointed, though none too surprised, that she couldn't. She couldn't remember ever really watching a sunrise or sunset, ever just watch the waves crash gracefully on the ocean, ever notice the splendor of the rustic woods where her family had had a vacation cabin. She'd always been too busy with something or another to just take the time to appreciate what was around her. Now, lying in a hospital bed for hours on end with nothing to do, Donna saw what she never really had before, appreciated what she always took for granted.  
  
The sky finally glowed fully with the luminance of the sun and Donna closed her eyes and heaved a tender sigh. She prayed, something she had seldom done before getting sick, and gave thanks for everything that was before her. When she opened her eyes, she turned her head and saw Josh sprawled out on the small sofa that had been moved into her room, upon the President's request which had stemmed from numerous staff complaints that there was nowhere to sit in Donna's room when they visited.  
  
Donna thought back to the previous night and felt a tingle race up her spine. She still couldn't believe what had happened. Josh had told her he loved. Joshua Lyman, Mr. Hit- and-Run himself, had said that he loved her. There had been no warning, no precursor, no indication in the past few days whatsoever that would have led Donna to believe that he was going to confess that to her. It had all been so sudden. First he sat next to her, than he looked at her, next he had kissed her, [an action Donna's lips still hadn't fully recovered from, as they still quivered when she merely thought about it!], and finally, he said he loved her. It had almost been too much for Donna to absorb. Thankfully, Josh had lapsed into an uncharacteristic silence afterwards and he had just continued to look at her with a small smile on his face. She couldn't even begin to vocalize her feelings on that subject so she had instead told him she was tired and had turned and pretended to fall asleep. Eventually, Josh moved to the couch where he had fallen into a peaceful slumber. Now that it was morning again, they would have to deal with the repercussions of his actions and Donna knew that this was the worst possible time for them to be having any kind of discussion on the matter. There were so many obstacles in their way, least of which was her illness and his relationship with Amy.  
  
Donna was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts when the door slowly opened and a nurse appeared pushing a wheelchair.  
  
"Morning Donna," said the nurse, Lorraine, while pushing the wheelchair towards the side of Donna's bed. "Dr. Flynn got here early this morning and wants you to start your transfusions at 6:00 rather 7:00. That okay?" Donna simply nodded to the affirmative and motioned her head towards the still sleeping Josh while raising a finger to his lips. She couldn't remember what was on his schedule today but she could tell from how he looked last night that he needed the rest. With assistance from Lorraine, Donna slowly and quietly got out of bed and into the wheelchair. They left the room and began down the nearly deserted hallway towards the treatment room. Dr. Flynn was waiting for them when they arrived a minute a later.  
  
"Well good morning to you, Dolly," the doctor said playfully, walking up to her. Ever since they had gotten into a discussion on movies a few days before, Dr. Flynn had nicknamed her "Dolly" after the title character of her favorite movie, Hello Dolly.  
  
He was dressed in his standard wardrobe: blue jeans, a tucked in, buttoned flannel shirt, running shoes, and white lab coat. If it wasn't for the lab coat, Donna might have guessed him to be a construction worker, like her father had been. He was in remarkable shape and the only thing that gave away his advanced years was the thinning white hair. If he hadn't told Donna himself that he was going to be sixty-five next month, she never would have guessed. Michael Flynn was always intelligent but he had moments of silliness. He knew his patients couldn't stand to around a serious bore all day and Donna was grateful that he recognized that. If he had been like that, she would have driven herself crazy by now.  
  
"Same to you," she teased with a smile, "Dr. Lecter. Eat any good kidneys lately?"  
  
"I prefer pancreases," he shot back with a humorous leer. "You want to get started?"  
  
"Do I have a choice?"  
  
"Nope. Now onto the bed we go missy."  
  
"Geez," replied Donna sarcastically, moving her feet off the rests, "I usually get at least a drink and a meal before a guy tells me that."  
  
Bending down, he went to move the foot rests of the wheelchair so she could get up. Lorraine was busy checking the IV bag that hung from the pole on the chair. The two medical professionals then helped her out of the chair and onto yet another hospital bed. Once she was settled in, Lorraine hung the IV from the bed pole and Dr. Flynn hung the first of the three bags of packed red blood cells that would be transfused into her body that morning. Later that afternoon, she'd have to do this all over again with three more bags. While the process was not painful, it was time consuming. One treatment could take up to three hours. During the afternoons, she could have visitors come down with her to keep her company but during the mornings, she was usually alone. Dr. Flynn spent what time he could with her, as did the nursing staff, but there were other patients and duties to attend to besides her.  
  
"All right, you're good to go," said the doctor, inserting the tiny tube of the bag into the other IV on her left hand. Lorraine nodded and left, saying she had to get home to get her kids ready for school. Lorraine worked the night shift and that was unfortunate since she was Donna's favorite nurse. The other two nurses, Ashley and Miranda, were polite enough but they just didn't have that motherly quality that Lorraine had.  
  
After Dr. Flynn and Donna both bid her goodbye, he turned back to Donna. "Listen, I have an M&M review board I have to get ready for. I'll come check on you later. Okay?"  
  
"Sure," Donna nodded.  
  
"Good. Just try to get some more rest."  
  
"Oh, like I haven't been doing enough of that lately," Donna responded dryly, rolling her eyes. Dr. Flynn smiled at her and walked towards the door.  
  
"You know something," Dr. Flynn added from the doorway. "Your sister is right." He paused for effect. "You really are a brat." He winked at her and walked away, not quite closing the door behind him.  
  
Donna leaned back and tried to relax as much as possible. She was still tired but she found it hard to sleep when going through treatment, no matter how drowsy she was. Nonetheless, she was going to make a valiant effort this time. She knew when she spoke to Josh again; she'd need all the strength she could get.  
  
Donna sighed, closed her eyes, and tried to adjust to the silence. There were no other patients receiving treatment at the moment and it made her uncomfortable being alone in this room, going through this treatment alone, possibly dying alone. Before Donna could get too deep into her thoughts, there was a knock at the door. She figured it was Nicole since the nursing shift didn't change until 6:30.  
  
"Nicole," she said, keeping her eyes closed. "You don't need to be here for every single."  
  
"Its not Nicole, Luv," said the familiar voice with the unmistakable British accent. Donna opened her eyes as the door opened and exposed Lily Irving, her oldest and best friend. She stood to her full height of 6'2'', a travel bag in each hand, and her always-present brown-knit cap concealing the bushel of black curls that adorned her head. "So," she continued with a twinkle in her eye, dropping her bags on a chair near the door and pulling off the cap, "How ya been?" she asked lightly.  
  
Donna laughed out loud and beckoned her over to the bed. "Get over here, you!" she squealed with delight, encompassing her friend in a hug with her free arm. "Oh, it's so good to see you again. Now what the hell are you doing here?" she finally asked when they parted.  
  
"Well," started Lily, pulling a chair to the side of the bed, "I was in Paris last week covering the Prime Minister's wedding to some twenty- something, chippy who dropped trough for some horror flick and became the next "It Girl", for my magazine."  
  
"And when you say 'magazine'," Donna cut in sarcastically, "you mean, of course, that cheap eyesore of weekly gossip that you work for which is run by greedy corporate executives and half-witted teeny bopper wannabes whose only purpose in life is to sell trivial, Hollywood chitchat as opposed to actual, you know, news?"  
  
"Of course," responded Lily, not missing a beat. "Anyways, after the wedding, I went off with this gorgeous, nineteen year-old waiter, who had a body that just wouldn't quit, to my hotel room upstairs and."  
  
"You didn't?!" Donna cried out, still surprised at her friend's antics after all this time.  
  
"You right, I didn't," Lily conceded, with good-humored sigh. "What really happened was after the wedding, I decided I needed a break for a few days so I went to my father's flat in the country while he and the fourth Mrs. Charles Garrison Irving were in Tahiti and crashed there for a bit. Low and behold, when I returned to London, there's a message on my machine from none other than the She Monkey."  
  
"Otherwise known as 'Nicole'?" Donna interjected.  
  
"Whatever floats your boat," Lily shrugged. She paused and looked at Donna seriously. "I called her back, she explained what was going on, I caught the first flight out of Heathrow last night and here I am." She folded one arm on the bedrail and placed her chin on her forearm. She grasped Donna's free hand lightly with the other hand. "So honestly, how are you?"  
  
Donna gave her a tiny half smile. "I'm really starting to get to sick of that question, you know."  
  
Lily looked at her pointedly. "Humor me," she said dryly.  
  
"Not that great," Donna admitted, all traces of playfulness gone from her voice. "This all just happened so quickly." She paused, debating between giving Lily her standard answer of 'I'm alright' or the truth, finally choosing the truth only on the basis that she had never been able to hide anything from Lily. "It doesn't even feel real, it feels like it's happening to someone else."  
  
Lily nodded. "What does the doctor say?"  
  
Donna shook her head gently. "It doesn't look good, Lil," she said softly. She tried in vain to choke back the sobs that were creeping up her throat but it was to no avail. "I'm so scared," she sobbed, finally releasing all the fears and anxieties that she had kept bottled up. Lily leaned up and wrapped her arms around Donna's heaving shoulders, rubbing her back gently and shedding some quiet tears along with her.  
  
After a few minutes, Donna's sobs eased off and she detangled herself from Lily's embrace. She wiped at her eyes with her, as did Lily. Donna was glad that she finally released some of the tension that was inside her but now she realized that the conversation had gotten far too serious for her liking. She racked her brain to try to find something else to talk to Lily about. It was then that she remembered something that had been gnawing at her brain for the past few hours.  
  
"Hey, you'll never guess what happened," she said, her voice a little raspy from the recent bout of tears.  
  
"What?" asked Lily, reaching over to snatch two tissues from a box on the side table. She handed one to Donna and used the other to try to stop the black streaks of mascara from flowing down her face.  
  
"Thank you," Donna said, reaching for the tissue. After she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, she turned back to Lily and continued, "Take a guess."  
  
"Oh, I don't know," Lily said, leaning back in her chair. "World peace was declared sometime in between when I boarded my plane and when I arrived here?"  
  
"No," said Donna with a small smile. "Not that extreme, but it is something that good and that complicated."  
  
"Oh for God's sake, just spit it out Luv," Lily said with a groan. "You know I can't stand these guessing games that Yanks like you seem to."  
  
"Josh told me he loves me," Donna interrupted, not looking Lily in the eye and instead focusing on the light sheet that covered her lower body.  
  
Lily was shocked to say the least. "I beg your pardon?" Lily said after a minute.  
  
Donna looked over at her friend and had to giggle at the flabbergasted expression she wore on her face. It was probably how she had looked last night. "Yeah," she nodded, laughing nervously. "He just came into my room last night after my brother and sister left, told me he loved me, and fell asleep on the couch," she finished with a small grin.  
  
"How very much like a man, tell a woman he loves her and crash for the rest of the evening," Lily said dumbly, thinking of nothing else to respond with. "What did you say?"  
  
"Nothing," replied Donna, shaking her head. Looking at Lily's confused face, she struggled to correct herself. "I mean it wasn't entirely my fault. After he kissed me."  
  
"Wait a minute," Lily broke in while taking her shoes off. She then stood up and went to sit on the end of Donna's bed near her legs, folding her legs Indian-style like when they were teenagers and gossiping when one of them was sleeping over the other's house. "You never said he kissed you! You just said that he told you he loved you, there was no mention of kissing!"  
  
"Well, there was a little kissing but only on his part."  
  
"Define 'a little kissing'."  
  
Donna was at a loss for words. That was because there weren't any words to describe how Josh had made her feel last night when he kissed her. She finally said, in a shy voice "It was the kind of kiss the groom gives the bride at the alter, after the priest pronounces them man and wife."  
  
Lily sighed contently. "Oh Luv," she said softly. "This is so wonderful."  
  
Donna bit down on her lower lip. "I guess it is," she said haltingly.  
  
"Whoa, what do you mean 'you guess it is'?" a surprised Lily asked. "Of course it is. This is what you've been wishing for years!"  
  
"Not like this," Donna explained. "Not under these circumstances. Not when I work directly for him, not when he's dating someone else, and certainly not when I'm.you know.like this."  
  
"But this is how it was it meant to happen, Donna, don't you see," said Lily, getting excited. "It was fate. Every single event in both your lives, every single moment led the two of you to that exact place and that exact moment because it's your."  
  
"Destiny, yes I know and I thought that you gave up that New Age crap when you broke up with the masseuse," Donna said.  
  
"This isn't New Age crap and he was a spiritual healer, not a masseuse," Lily pointed out. "It's how your life was supposed to turn out. Everyone has a path in life and your path has led you to Josh and his path has led him to you."  
  
"And this great path that I'm on is also supposed to lead to me an early grave, isn't it?" Donna shot back, looking away.  
  
Lily brought her hand up to Donna's chin and forced Donna to look her in the eyes. "We're never given more than we can handle, Donnatella," she said with soft-spoken conviction. "We're given challenges by whomever or whatever is responsible for us being here, I'll give you that. But we're also given the means to face them and the people to help us overcome them. This.this sickness wasn't meant to punish you, it was meant to reward you. To show you all you have to be grateful for in life. Josh is one of those things. When you beat this, which you will by the way, the two of you are going to have a wonderful life together and this will all be a bittersweet memory."  
  
"What do you mean by 'bittersweet memory'?" Donna asked. "Believe me when I tell you this memory will be as bitter as a cranky old man on Halloween for me, if it even becomes a memory."  
  
"This illness has caused you pain," Lily said, choosing to ignore Donna's other comments, "but it also brought you and Josh together."  
  
Donna pondered Lily's wise words. They didn't really make any sense to her but at the same time it did. "You really think I'm gonna beat this, Lil?" she asked curiously.  
  
"I know you will," said Lily confidently. "And after all is said and done, I'll be in the Rose Garden of the White House covering my best friend's wedding to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for the European edition of the political commentary magazine, The Connection."  
  
"Oh stop it," Donna said bashfully, though now that Lily mentioned it, the Rose Garden was beautiful in the springtime.  
  
"And then I'll come back here for the holidays, were we'll celebrate the triumph of the Americans stealing land from the Native Americans and we'll attempt to cook an edible turkey."  
  
"I happen to be a very good cook, thank you very much," Donna scoffed.  
  
"Then a year later I'll return simply to tease you about being as big as a whale when you're pregnant." Lily trailed off, her skin paling beyond its normal white and the smile left her face, like she had just realized something. Donna had a similar reaction. She cast her eyes downward and brought her thumb to her mouth lightly chewing on the polished nail. "He doesn't know does he?" Lily finally asked.  
  
Donna sighed and looked at her. She silently shook her head. "None of them do."  
  
"Well, you're going to tell him, of course," Lily said hopefully. The look that Donna had on her face suggested otherwise. "Right?" When Donna didn't immediately answer, Lily continued, "Donna you have to tell him. You can't keep this a secret."  
  
"I've kept it a secret from him for years now," Donna countered. "He's never suspected anything, none of them have."  
  
"I don't understand," Lily said angrily. "You've worked with him and everyone else, side-by-side, for years and you've never had the decency to tell them?!"  
  
"That's right," Donna responded defensively. "I didn't and I'll tell you why; it wasn't any of their damn business that's why!"  
  
"Well what are you gonna say when they want to know where the bone marrow came from?" Lily asked, having already researched aplastic anemia on her laptop computer on the flight and spoken to Donna's doctor on her cell phone from the cab.  
  
"Because that's not where the marrow's coming from," Donna answered delicately.  
  
Lily was speechless. Her best friend had decided to play a game of Russian roulette with her life. "You mean you're not going to fly her here to be tested?" she asked quietly. Donna shook her head. "I don't believe this! You irresponsible coward! How dare you do this!" Lily got up and walked around the room for a minute, trying to keep her emotions in check. She was desperately worried about Donna but at the same time, she was now also royally pissed off at her. Lily finally asked, in a voice cold enough to freeze fire, "Does she even know you're sick?"  
  
"Lily," Donna said, struggling for control, "You know her. If I told Emma what was going on, she'd insist on being tested. And I don't want her to do that, she's too young. So I'm not calling her or Mena until this over with."  
  
"Why the hell don't you want her tested?" Lily asked, her anger being replaced with shock.  
  
"There are risks to the procedure."  
  
"Minimal risks, Donna, not enough to warrant."  
  
"Any risks are too many risks for her, Lily!" Donna proclaimed. She would have continued but the nurse came in to replace the empty bag of red blood cell with a fresh one. The nurse looked at the two women questioningly.  
  
"Is everything all right in here?" she asked, having heard some heated words before she walked in.  
  
"Everything's all right," answered Donna. "Right Lily?"  
  
Lily shot her a withering glare. "Right as rain," she said stonily.  
  
"Okay," said the nurse, glancing carefully at the two of them. "I'll be back to check on you in a little while. I suggest that you two try to tone it down a little," she said sternly. With that, the nurse left and Donna and Lily lapsed into silence. It lasted until Lily could no longer bite her tongue back.  
  
"You claim to love Josh," she started harshly. "You claim to love him with all your heart. You say you want to spend the rest of your life with him and apparently, now he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Yet you've been lying to him all this time." Lily paused for effect. "What's he gonna think of you when he finds out?"  
  
"I don't know," said Donna truthfully. "But I made this choice and it was the right one. I'll live with consequences of it."  
  
Lily shook her head. "Or maybe you won't live with them, that's what I'm afraid of," she said passionately. She sat down on the bed, arms folded across her chest. "I don't understand your feelings on this," she said after a minute, calming down a bit. "Frankly, I've never understood your feelings on this but that's beside the point now."  
  
"Well, what is the point then, Lily?" Donna asked, getting frustrated again. "Really, what has been your point in this entire conversation?  
  
"My point is," started Lily, "That she could save your life and you won't even let her just because you're scared of what everyone else is going to say or think about you."  
  
Donna nodded slowly. "Yeah," she admitted. "I guess I am. They'll probably hate me if they find out." Donna smirked at her. "Or I'll be dead in which case, it'll be moot anyway."  
  
"Donna, that is so completely unfunny," Lily retorted.  
  
"Whatever," Donna shrugged. "I'm still not telling Emma and you can't change my mind about it."  
  
Lily stopped to look at Donna, who had a determined look on her face. The same look she saw on Donna's face when she had made the decision five years before that had indirectly affected this argument. "Why not?" Lily asked, although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.  
  
Donna sighed and gave her a half smile. "Because I'm her mother and I say so." 


	4. Chapter 4

Donna's Room: 6:30 am  
  
The incessant ringing of a phone caused Josh to wake up. He groaned and turned over, placing a pillow over his head, hoping the action would make the annoying noise cease. To Josh's surprise, it did. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Even in his foggy mind, he knew it was a Saturday, a usually light day at the office and he didn't want to be hassled with any potential problems.  
  
'I wonder what Leo wanted' Josh thought as he was about to slip quietly back into his peaceful slumber, assuming he was in his own bed in his own apartment. Then he realized that he was not lying on his comfortable mattress at home but rather on a somewhat small sofa. Right then, his brain began working in overdrive as he suddenly remembered where he was and what had transpired the night before. First he was working. than he talked with Leo. and then he came to the hospital and told Donna.  
  
"Oh my God!" Josh cried, bolting up and falling off the sofa onto the hard linoleum floor in the process. If the realization of what he had done last night hadn't woken him up, the whack to head he suffered on the floor sure would have.  
  
"What the hell was I thinking?" he thought out loud. That was the entire problem, he hadn't been thinking. And now look what he had done! He franticly searched his memory, hoping that it had just been a vivid dream. Maybe he hadn't really had that talk with Leo. Maybe he had just come back to the hospital check here to check on Donna real quick before he went home. Maybe it had been so late that he had just ended up staying so late that he fell asleep on the couch. Maybe he had.  
  
"Oh who the hell am I kidding," he moaned quietly, covering his face with his hands. "I really told Donna I was in love with her."  
  
"And you damn well better have meant it!" an unfamiliar female voice with a British accent surprised Josh. He took his hands away from his face and looked up to see someone standing over him. "Because if you didn't," the stranger continued, "I'll whoop your ass so hard that you'll wish."  
  
"I'm sorry to interrupt," Josh cut in, "but before you continue to threaten me with bodily harm, can you at least tell me who the hell you are?"  
  
The woman crouched down on the floor next to Josh and sat down, leaning her back against the couch and moving her expensive-looking boots close to Josh's face. "I'm Lily Irving," she said. When she saw Josh drawing a blank, she sighed. "I'm a friend of Donna's, we've met before," pointing to herself and Josh as she continued. Josh still couldn't place her among the small handful of friends of Donna's that he'd met over the years. "Urgh, you moron!" a frustrated Lily exclaimed. "I'm the one who got so drunk at her birthday party two years ago that I ended up making out with her landlady's fifty-six year-old son!"  
  
"Oh yeah," answered Josh, the light bulb finally going off in his brain. "Right, the British one, the one who writes for the tabloid." He paused for a second. "Yeah you were pretty far gone that night," he told her, trying to hide back a smile at the hazy memory of the raven haired young woman practically dragging the poor old man into the nearest closet.  
  
"Whatever you're thinking about right now, I suggest that you stop immediately," replied Lily with a contemptuous glare at Josh. He promptly stifled his grin. "I take it that you are still Joshua Lyman."  
  
"Yes," he responded, moving to sit up next to her. "How have you been?" He offered his hand to shake but when he saw the look of frosty malice in her eyes, he quickly pulled his hand back down. Josh gave her a tight grin. "So I guess it's safe to assume you heard my ramblings just then."  
  
"As a matter of fact, I did," she said icily. "Quite insightful those few moments were. I especially liked the one were your face suggested you seemed to be absolutely horrified to realize that you had told Donna that you loved her. Something, I might add, that she's been wanting to hear for years know and."  
  
"Wait a minute," Josh said abruptly. He had had his head in his hands as listened to Lily's scolding but his head shot up as her last comment. "What do you mean 'she's been wanting to hear for years'?"  
  
Lily looked at him as if he'd suddenly grown a second head. "Are you going to look me in the eye and tell me straight to my face that you haven't known that Donna's been in love with you?" she asked disbelievingly. When he didn't answer, she looked more carefully at him. The bulging out of his Adam's apple, the creased brows, the dazed look in his eyes; the man looked like someone had just told him that the Republican Party had just bought the United States and banished all Democrats to Siberia. "Oh," she said more softly, slightly mollified. "You didn't know."  
  
"No," Josh croaked out. His mouth was rapidly becoming dryer than the Sahara Desert and his infamous 760 SAT verbal vocabulary had been reduced to monosyllabic words. He just couldn't believe what Lily had told him. Donna was in love him. Donnatella Moss loved him, Joshua Lyman. Him, who took advantage of her time and allowed her almost no personal time for herself. Him, who depended on her more than it was probably healthy to. Him, who could insult her over and over again when he was in a bad mood at work yet she'd just keep on smiling and reading off his schedule to him; it just wasn't possible. Josh being in love with Donna was one thing but the notion of her actually returning his feelings was just.  
  
"Wha.what do you mean she's in love with me?" Josh asked, trying to sound nonchalant and shake it off as if it had been nothing. "That's, uh, that's the most insane thing I've ever heard and I'm a Democrat; I hear more insane things in one day then you'd could possibly imagine. I remember this one time this guy."  
  
"What on earth are you babbling about?" Lily cut him off. "I just told you Donna loves you and then you go and."  
  
"Exactly!" Josh exclaimed, rising to his feet and gesturing franticly with his hands as he spoke. "That's what I'm babbling about. Well, I wouldn't characterize it has babbling so much as.something else." He paused for a second to reclaim his thoughts. "You see, it's not possible for Donna Moss to be in love me. There's no possibility that Donna is love with me. You see her being in love with me would be the opposite of possible," Josh rambled on, unaware of the small smile that was all of a sudden playing across Lily's lips. "It's.it's.ludicrous, it's.ah.. infathomable, it's preposterous, it's just, you know."  
  
"Not possible?" Lily interjected from her spot on the floor.  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"No!"  
  
"What do you mean 'no'?"  
  
"I mean 'no' as in you're wrong, Josh," answered Lily, standing up to face him. "I know from Donna that you think that you can't be wrong about anything but you can be and you know what? You're completely wrong about this. It is possible for Donna to be in love with you. As stupid and insane as it is for her to be, she's in love with you. And the reason I know its possible is because she told me she's in love with you. On more than one occasion I might add," she finished, folding her arms across her chest.  
  
"Look it's just way too." Josh halted his continuing argument on how Donna couldn't be in love with him when Lily's words finally penetrated his brain. "She.she what?" he asked dumbly.  
  
"She told me she's in love with you, though I seriously questioned her judgment considering her taste in men," Lily laughed lightly then stopped when she saw the look on Josh's face. He looked like he was about to be sick to his stomach. "Are you alright?" she asked, growing concerned.  
  
"Why?" Josh whispered.  
  
"I'm sorry, what?" Lily replied.  
  
"Why does she love me?" he asked in the same tone. "I mean I certainly haven't done anything to deserve it." He rubbed his hands over his tired face and practically collapsed onto the sofa. It was a problem that had plagued Josh since he was seven years old and had watched a seemingly endless fire claim the life of his only sibling. Since that day, he had never felt deserving of the love that was given to him by the people around him. Sure he put on a good front; he smiled whenever his mother said the words to him, was involved with semi-serious relationships with women from time to time, and agreed with his therapist that he was making progress. The truth was, when it came to love, Josh was still practically as broken as he'd been since the day Joanie had died.  
  
"Well," said Lily, having the benefit of not knowing his history and going to sit next to him, "not the way she tells it. According to her, she owes you everything. I mean she told me once that she couldn't help wondering what would have happened to her if you hadn't hurried her when she showed up in New Hampshire."  
  
"I don't know what would have happened to me either," Josh admitted. "But that doesn't justify her being in, you know, lo.love with me." Lily started snickering at that comment. Her giggles perturbed Josh a little. "Hey I'm making heartfelt confessions here. Do you mind not laughing about it to my face?"  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry dear," she said coyly, her laughter subsiding. "It just amuses me is all."  
  
"What does?" asked Josh with a questioning look.  
  
"You're dim-witted attempts at trying to rationalize love, you fool!" she exclaimed jokingly. "Love is not something that can be rationalized. In fact, love in itself is the very opposite of rationality."  
  
"And how do you figure that?" Josh inquired, interested in hearing what she had to say and leaning back against the couch and propping his head up against his right hand.  
  
"Well," started Lily as she reached into her large canvas bag and rustled around for a minute before pulling out a pack of cigarettes, "people by nature are the most selfish creatures in existence. For example, we work hard at our jobs and in our lives to supposedly keep the economy from falling apart when all we're doing is working in order to gain material necessities and comforts for ourselves." She pulled a lighter from her pocket and preceded to light the cigarette she had gotten from the box. She was just about to light it when she stopped and looked at Josh. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, how rude of me. Hang on a sec." Josh assumed she was going to put the cigarette away, like a normal, considerate person would. Instead she reached up behind her and opened the window, letting the cool morning breeze drift into the room. She adjusted herself on the couch so she sat closer to the window and then finished lighting the cigarette, blowing the smoke out the window. "So, were was I?"  
  
"Human beings serve themselves and only themselves and the moral code that states that all people are born inherently good is bull," Josh answered with an amused expression on his face.  
  
"Ah yes," said Lily with a smile. She paused for a minute to take another draft of her cigarette. "Well it's not always so much selfishness as it is survival. In the laws of the jungle, only the strongest predators will dominate while the weaker ones are usually just trying to survive. People are just like this only we're much more PC about it. You know, welfare, homeless shelters, unemployment all that crap."  
  
"Hey," Josh's political tendencies kicked in, "those happen to be programs and establishments that without which hundreds of thousands of people in our country would."  
  
"Well it's not my country, first of all, and second I didn't mean to offend you, I was just trying to make a point," Lily said, holding up her hand to indicate that Josh should stop talking. "May I continue?"  
  
"By all means," sighed Josh. "It isn't every day I get to hear philosophical arguments on society from a tabloid reporter.  
  
"Thank you," she answered sarcastically. "As I was saying, it's basically all about dominance and survival for people. And most people are fine with it like that; they float along for a good portion of their lives like that. But then," Lily paused dramatically and taking a heavy drag from her cigarette, "love enters the equation. And that's when the shit hits the fan."  
  
"How?" Josh asked, his brows furrowing as he tried to follow the strange British woman's logic.  
  
"Cause when people fall in love," Lily said, finishing her cigarette and putting it out in the ashtray she kept in her bag for handiness, "they're more concerned with someone else's life than they are with their own. They put their partner's happiness and well being over anything, even their own happiness and well-being. Therefore it's not themselves that they're living for anymore, it's another person. Thereby eliminating selfishness from the equation and then they are just.living. And that's not a bad path to walk down. Especially when you're not walking down it alone," she finished with a shrug of her shoulders.  
  
"Yeah," nodded Josh, almost to himself contemplating the words he'd just heard. "Yeah, I think you might be right."  
  
"Well, I know I am," she said confidently. "The question is not if I'm right or not. It's not even if you're in love or not; the question is whether or not you're willing to make the sacrifices it takes for love to survive in a relationship." Lily paused for a minute, trying to think of a tactful way to form her next question. Then she remembered that she had never been tactful in her life so she just plunged forward. "You are in love with Donna though, aren't you?" she asked carefully, just to be sure. He closed his eyes and nodded slowly, a smile gracing his face. Lily bit back a shout of happiness. "When did you know?"  
  
"Last night," he said with a small chuckle. "I should say I admitted it to myself last night. As for an exact moment, that's a little iffy. I mean I know I always needed her but."  
  
"When did you know you needed her the most?" Lily interrupted.  
  
"December 19, 2000," he said without hesitation. When he caught Lily's perplexed look, he continued. "I, ah, I had undiagnosed PTSD for awhile after the shooting and that night." he paused to cast his eyes downward to avoid her gaze, "I was going to kill myself. And I probably would have if it hadn't been for her."  
  
"What do you mean?" Lily asked quietly, looking at him intently. Donna had never mentioned this to her.  
  
"Well," he said clearly uncomfortable but knowing that he needed to do this. Stanley had told him he needed to tell someone about this eventually and for some reason he found it easier to tell to a perfect stranger rather than any of his friends or family. "I had just cut my hand by smashing it through a window in my apartment." He indicated to the small scar on his right hand. "After I told my super that I had cut it by putting a glass down, I went back into my bedroom and just sat on the bed for awhile. Then for some reason, I spotted these sleeping pills my doctor had prescribed to me." He scratched the back of his head as he drifted back to that night. "All of a sudden, the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted to die. I wanted to just end it all, the pain, the nightmares, the problems I was having with people. I didn't care if I hurt my family and friends or how much pain this would cause them; I just wanted it to be over. So I, uh, got up to go and get the pills and as I stood, I bumped into the table near my bed and this picture fell down. I picked it up and the first thing I saw Donna's face." His voice started cracking then and he could feel the tears in the back of throat that were ready to spill forth. "I picked it up and looked at it through the cracked glass. It was a picture of me, Donna, and some other people of the night of our first State of the Union." He smiled just a bit at the memory. "I remember how happy she was after it was over and thinking, 'how can one person be that happy about one thing?'. She was so beautiful that night, even if I wouldn't admit it." He cherished memories like that and would have been perfectly content to just end it there but he knew he needed to finish the story. Not so much for Lily's sake as he did for his own. "Anyways, I saw her face and I remembered how hard she worked to get me back on my feet after the shooting and how much time she'd put into taking care of me. I didn't want her to feel like that had all been for nothing. I didn't want her to be alone. Killing myself suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea anymore so I took the pills and flushed them all down the toilet, just in case the urge to ever came again," he sighed as he finished. He hung his low, partly out of shame and partly because the story took so much emotionally out of him.  
  
"And did it?" Lily asked quietly, unshed tears brimming in her eyes for this man whom she knew almost nothing about but who had just shared a deep part of his soul with her.  
  
"The urge to kill myself?" he answered still not looking up. "No, not really. I had already been ordered to meet with someone to get help by Leo McGarry because of an, I guess you could call it an 'incident'. I met with a therapist a few days later and I started to get better."  
  
She nodded slowly, and then stopped. "You know," she said, her voice quivering slightly. "I had an eating disorder for about fifteen years." Josh looked at her strangely for second and she turned to him and gave him a small, sad smile as her eyes began to water up. "I suffered from bulimia from when I was about eleven years-old until I was twenty-five. There was no reason for it, really. I mean I was popular, I had a lot of friends, I was a very well rounded student, and my parents loved me even though they were spilt up. I just, I don't know, my life seemed like it was controlled by other people like my folks or my teachers or the mailman," she said with a short laugh. "I guess I just needed to control something about me, so I just started puking up almost everything I ate. No one could help me, though lord knows they tried. I was in therapy, in rehab, even in a nut house for a while. Then one morning, I woke and went on a major eating binge. When it was over I went into the bathroom and caught myself in the mirror before I reached the toilet. I was 6'2'' and I weighed about 92 pounds. My skin was almost yellow, my hair was falling out, and I could barely walk across a room without feeling like I was going to pass out. So I walked back into my bedroom before I could do anything and found this old photo album tucked in my bookcase. I pulled it out and sat on the floor and started to leaf through it. I just looked at al these pictures from when I was little and saw how happy I was and how happy everybody else around me was. I wanted to get that back and I realized the only way I could do that was to get better so I did." She wiped at the tears forming at the corner of her eyes. "Donna was in the most of the pictures with me."  
  
"Wow," said Josh softly. "I guess we've got more in common than we thought."  
  
Lily didn't know how to respond to this kind of conversation. She could deal with the heavy stuff when push comes to shove but moments like this were foreign to her. Lily wasn't used to connecting with complete strangers. She supposed Josh expected her to make some kind of glib remark to lighten the mood but she didn't think that would be appropriate right then. So instead, she went on instinct and leaned over to Josh and wrapped her arms around, holding him tight. His arms became rigid immediately but after a minute, she felt him relax and wrap his own arms around her back. They stayed like that for a few minutes and then awkwardly started to pull apart. They situated themselves back on their designated sides of the couch and tried to compose themselves. Straightening shirts, brushing back hair, wiping at their eyes.  
  
Josh was uncomfortable at best, wanting to crawl out of his skin at the worst. He was not good with the intimate stuff which people who knew him understood. Add to the fact that he'd just shared some of his most private demons with someone whom he'd only talked to for five minutes over the past five years and Josh was just about ready to liquefy into the floor at that moment. The tension in the room was unbearable right then and he didn't know what either he or Lily could say to make things better.  
  
"So," Lily broke in all of a sudden, "what's the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch all about really?"  
  
Josh turned to her and gave her a peculiar look. "Huh?" was the most articulate thing he could come up with. 'What the hell is she talking about?' he thought to himself.  
  
"Well I know it's something that goes on in baseball games," started Lily. "And that it's one of those silly songs that is really only fun to sing when you're drunk. But at baseball games there are small children and elderly people there that may not appreciate drunkenness at a ballgame. So what's up with it?"  
  
"I.I really am a little lost right now," Josh admitted.  
  
"Oh, I see," replied Lily. "You don't want to explain it to me because then you'd have to admit that you've done that at games before, in front of the elderly and small children."  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" Josh exclaimed frustrated. "We were just having a serious conversation than you go and."  
  
"Which would look bad for you politically because then you'd also have to admit to public drunkenness," continued Lily without even a look at Josh, as she started gathering her coat and bag, "Especially when you're speaking to a news journalist."  
  
"All right, you know what," started Josh as he too got up, "first of all, you're not a news journalist. You're an overpaid gossip columnist who not only doesn't care about legitimate news but you wouldn't know what legitimate news was if it jumped out of cake and started doing a strip tease in front of you. Second, people like singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at baseball games and the only ones who get drunk when they singing are the college frat boys who are sitting in the bleacher seats away from families and old people. Third, yes I was once one of those college frat boys but so were about 87% of the current Congress. And lastly, we were very much having an awkward moment back there on the couch a few minutes ago and I wanna know what the hell just happened to it!" he wrapped up, finally stopping to catch his breath.  
  
Lily stared at him with a barely concealed smile. "Do you feel awkward anymore?" she asked him pointedly.  
  
Josh opened his mouth to answer to the affirmative but found that he couldn't because he no longer did. He didn't feel uncomfortable anymore; he actually felt a little better than he had for a while. "No," he stated bewilderedly. "No, not really. How'd you do that?"  
  
"Misdirection," she answered with a superior grin. "You know, distract your opposition from the real issue by getting them all riled up about something else completely meaningless. I'd have thought that someone in your line of work would have."  
  
"Thank you," Josh told her seriously. "Just.thank you."  
  
She patted his shoulder playfully. "Likewise. And don't worry, I may be paid to be a gossip columnist but I'm vacation now so."  
  
"Yeah, likewise," replied Josh.  
  
"So," she sighed casually. "I'm starved. Anywhere near here that we can go for some grub?"  
  
"Well, what about Donna?" asked Josh getting worried. "We shouldn't leave alone. Come to think of it, where the hell is she? Is she okay? Is she.?"  
  
"Getting her treatments early today, why yes she is," answered Lily before Josh could wig out. "And she's not alone, T.J. was with her when I left and I imagine that the She Monkey will join them shortly."  
  
"The She Monkey?" asked Josh confused as he began looking for his coat.  
  
"I'll explain it on the way to breakfast," said Lily, flicking off the lights as she and Josh exited the room.  
  
Dr. Flynn's Office: 9:00 am Sunday  
  
"No, Phil you're not listening to me," the exasperated Dr. Flynn said into the phone. "This woman has borderline stage 4 aplastic anemia, she doesn't have time to.Yes I understand that.Yes, I'm saying.No I'm not asking for you to give her special consideration, 'cause in order to do that it would mean that you guys would have to give her actual, you know, consideration in the first place! But instead you're coming back to me with this bureaucratic bullsh.I do hear what you're saying and what I'm saying is that Donna doesn't have that kind of time." The doctor sighed, closing his eyes. Listening for a minute, he suddenly sat straight up. "Yeah, I understand. Yeah.Yeah. All right, thank you very much. I won't forget this, Phil, I promise you that. Thank you. Good-bye." He hung up the phone with a small smile, hopeful for the first time in days. Michael Flynn was known for a great many things and quitting on his patients was not one of them.  
  
The door to his office opened and his secretary poked her head in. "Yeah what is it, Lisa?" he asked, going back to look through the massive amount of paperwork that accumulated onto his desk on a daily basis. If a law firm thought they could produce a lot of useless paperwork in a day, they should see the kind of output a hospital produces.  
  
"Ah, um doctor?" the young woman asked in a mouse-like voice. She was, after all, only twenty-three and still not used to his intense presence. Add to that the person who was standing in the alcove and she was practically wiping the sweat off her palms.  
  
"What?" the doctor asked looking up, noticing how pale Lisa's face was. "Is everything okay?"  
  
"Uh, yes but there's someone here to see you, Dr. Flynn," she answered, fidgeting a little and wringing her hands together.  
  
"Who?" the doctor asked, curious as to this person was that was getting his secretary all into a tizzy.  
  
Suddenly, two large men in almost identical black suits appeared in his doorway and proceeded to situate themselves in his office. After they had given the room a swift once-over, one of them spoke into his wrist saying, "Room's secure. Agent's McLean and Hall standing by. Room is clear for Band- Aid."  
  
"Band-Aid?" replied the doctor. "What the hell is.?"  
  
"Good morning, Dr. Flynn," said the First Lady as she breezed into the room, past his near whimpering secretary and up to him. "I'm Abigail Bartlett, it's a pleasure to meet you."  
  
The doctor was pretty much dumbstruck at that point. "Oh, uh, um yes of course," he stuttered, forgetting for a second that he had graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern. His vocabulary had left him faster than a girl's top at Mardi Gras. "Ho.How do you do ma'am?" he asked hesitantly.  
  
"Fine, thank you," she answered graciously, sensing his nervousness and trying to put him at ease. "May I sit down?"  
  
"Oh, yes by all means please do," Dr. Flynn answered, gesturing to one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk. He looked up and saw Lisa standing there with her mouth hanging open like fish. He jerked his head, indicating that she should leave the office, which she did. She was almost out of the office, going to close the door, when one of the Secret Service agents stopped.  
  
"No miss, the door stays open," he said with an authorative tone. Lisa was just about ready to go into cardiac arrest.  
  
"That's all right. Adam, its fine," the First Lady interjected and he moved away, allowing Lisa to close the door. Turning back to Michael, she continued. "They don't like the door closed when I'm in a strange place like this."  
  
"Ah, I see," he answered thinking of nothing better to say. Silence permeated the room.  
  
"Well this is a very lovely office," Abbey said, attempting to make small talk. Looking around, she noticed that there seemed to be an abundance of pastels and watercolors with a distinct feminine undertone to them.  
  
"Thank you, ma'am, that's very nice of you to say," the doctor said back to her. "To tell you the truth though, I'm not that wild about it myself."  
  
"Who decorated it for you?" The First Lady asked politely. "You didn't do it yourself, did you?"  
  
"Oh Lord no," Michael responded with a small smile. "One of my wives actually decorated it a few years back and I've just been too busy to remember to change it."  
  
"Which wife was it?" Abbey bluntly questioned.  
  
Michael thought back for a few seconds. "To tell you the truth I honestly don't remember," he said with a small chuckle. "I wanna say it was Shelia but now that I'm thinking about it, it could have very well have been Helen. Or maybe it was Traci, she was always into."  
  
The First Lady began to laugh in quiet astonishment. "If you don't mind me asking, how many wives have you had?"  
  
"I just signed the final paperwork on divorce number seven a month ago," he said, almost cringing when he realized how bad that sounded.  
  
"Seven marriages," said the First Lady, more than slightly amused. "I'm not sure if I should be scolding you or applauding you."  
  
"I'd prefer the applause though I probably deserve the scolding," he answered. "It's just hard to keep a marriage together when you're a doc." Michael trailed off, realizing a second too late his mistake.  
  
Abbey smiled at him. "That's alright," she consoled him, not seeming to mind his loose lips. She leaned back comfortably in the chair as she continued. "I remember nights when I'd come home from working three straight shifts in the ER as an intern to find that my husband had tried to cook a meal on his own, my daughters had painted a mural on the living room wall, and the house was in utter chaos. I'd just about come this close to ripping Jed's head off."  
  
"Oh yeah, I remember those days," he responded with a roll of his eyes, forgetting for a moment that 'Jed' was the leader of the free world and that she was one of the most recognizable women on the planet.  
  
"So anyways," Abbey said, switching gears. "I think you know why I'm here."  
  
"Wild guess," he said, going into doctor mode and reaching for one of the manila folders on his desk, "but it wouldn't have anything to do with the blonde woman in room 2587 would it?"  
  
"What's her status?" asked Abbey, holding out her hand for the folder that Dr. Flynn was about to give her.  
  
"Same thing I told the president. Borderline stage 4 aplastic anemia," he said, his voice becoming clipped and clinical, like it did when he spoke professionally with other doctors.  
  
"You're giving her the transfusions daily?" she asked, her eyes scanning the file.  
  
"Six pints, everyday; three pints in the morning and three in the afternoon. No significant improvement, though," his voice suggesting that he wasn't surprised with that fact.  
  
"Well Donna didn't even start the treatments until late last week so we can't know anything for certain; these things can take their time to." The words flew out of Abbey's head as her eyes suddenly rested on one particular notation. The doctor knew without asking what she was reading. "Her white count is increasing," she sighed in quiet dismay.  
  
"Yeah," said the doctor, lowering his eyes and rubbing his forehead.  
  
"Blood pressure's dropping," she continued, shaking her head slightly.  
  
"Yes, but her renal output is normal," the doctor added, "It is lower than most other women in Donna's age group, I'll admit, but it's still within the limits of normal. Her liver and pancreas functions haven't changed yet. And if you look at her platelet count you'll see. "  
  
The First Lady didn't seem to hear him as she closed the file and placed it on the desk. "The treatment isn't working. She's dying," Abbey cut in, frankly.  
  
"Not yet," Dr. Flynn corrected empathically.  
  
"But she will be," Abbey countered. "Soon, according to this information, she will be."  
  
"Yes," Michael conceded. "Unless we get the marrow, which I think that we will."  
  
"You've made progress in finding a match?" Abbey asked in a hopeful voice.  
  
"Yes," he said, with a little pride. "I've got a good feeling. I just got off the phone with Phil Jameson; he's the assistant director with the National Bone Marrow Registry in their East Coast office. It took some haggling and many, many favors but I just got them to upgrade Donna to status 1. We should be hearing something within the next couple of days."  
  
"Well that's great," said Abbey, heaving a small sigh of relief. "We've all just been so worried about Donna. Everyone at the White House, I mean."  
  
"Oh, I believe that," he grinned. "The White House staff has pretty much set camp here for the last week. We're about ready to install a bank phones on this floor just to handle all the calls we get asking about Donna." H stopped, knowing that his next question might offend Abbey but knowing that he had to ask it anyway, for his own piece of mind. "May I ask you something, ma'am?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"It's something of a somewhat personal nature, ma'am."  
  
"Doctor, my husband is the President of the United States. I'm not allowed to have a personal life, the framers put that right there in the Constitution," she assured him jokingly.  
  
"Why are you here?" he asked without preamble.  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"What I mean is, Donna's not a high-ranking Cabinet official," he continued, trying to explain his position. "She's not a head of state; she's not even a senior official. I'm not saying that she isn't a wonderful person, ma'am, because she is. I've come to care for and admire her a lot in the past few days." He thought for a second how to phrase his next remark. "It's just that you and the president probably don't see her that often when you're in the White House and I'm just wondering."  
  
"Why the hell we care so much about someone we don't even really know that well?" she finished for him.  
  
"Well.yeah," he replied sheepishly.  
  
Abbey nodded, her lips quirking upward slightly. "Dr. Flynn," she started gently. "When you have to tell the entire world that you did something wrong, then sit back and allow them to call you every repugnant name in the English dictionary, look around at the people who stand beside you." She gave him a meaningful look. "That's who your family is."  
  
Hospital Café: Same Time  
  
".And after she had to show up at school the next day and change for gym with the hairy back that the "Hair-Grow" had provided her, we just started calling Nicole the 'She Monkey'," Lily finished matter-of-factly, munching on a piece of melon from her fruit salad. She and Josh were sharing breakfast in the corner of the hospital's near-vacant café. Lily had helped herself to a bowl of fruit salad and juice while Josh had opted for an egg and cheese omelet with a steaming cup of coffee. Lily had been spending the past fifteen minutes or so filling Josh in on the history she had with Donna and Donna's family.  
  
Lily's parents had divorced when she was about six and she had moved to the States with her mother soon after. They had settled in Madison, Wisconsin where her mother, Catherine, was going to open a small B&B. Lily had arrived in her new elementary school in the middle of November and according to her, when she was introduced by the teacher to her fellow first-graders, no one wanted the "funny sounding girl with the pig nose" to sit next to them. She was forced to sit by herself that first morning though her teacher assured her that her desk partner would be there that afternoon. At recess that day, Lily was teased mercilessly by her classmates until a pigtailed blonde girl in a pink dress with her two front teeth missing came up to the group that was making fun of Lily and started giving them hell. She dredged up the embarrassing moments of the young children present and told them to scatter. Then, she introduced herself to Lily as one Donnatella Moss, her missing desk partner from that morning that had had a dentist's appointment. Lily and Donna spent the rest of the afternoon recess talking and they had been practically inseparable ever since. Lily and her mother became a fixture at Donna's house when Donna's mother was still alive and after her own mother past away when she was fourteen, Donna looked to Catherine Irving as a second mother. Lily had also taken care of the infamous pig nose when she was fifteen but she didn't mention that to Josh,  
  
Whenever Lily would go back to England for the summer to visit her father, Donna would usually accompany her for at least a few weeks. They attended the same schools through their youth, played the same sports, wore the same kind of clothes, and even liked most of the same foods. Back then, when one mentioned Donna Moss one immediately thought of Lily Irving and vice-versa. College was much the same. They had both been accepted to the University of Wisconsin, Donna on a full academic scholarship and Lily's parents paid for her tuition. It was much the same there for them the first few months as it had been in high school, except that they didn't see each other as much. While Donna changed majors like some women change hairstyles, Lily was always devoted to her journalism major. Her father owned several magazines that were popular in Europe and she had always wanted to be a reporter. It was for these reasons that Donna and Lily began slowly seeing less and less of each other. They were still the best of friends but things had changed. Things changed even more when Donna was nineteen and met Ben.  
  
"Ben" was Ben Peterson, a twenty-two year old med student who had just transferred from Northwestern in Chicago. At the time, it was believed that he had transferred to Madison to finish his studies closer to his family, who lived in Green Bay. They would all later learn that Ben had been kicked out of Northwestern due to his inability to pay tuition. His parents had pretty much disowned him after high school so in his mind, his only option was to move to Madison and use the one advantage God had given him: his good looks and charming personality. And it had worked almost immediately on Donna. She'd have done almost anything for him, including give up her own education in order for Ben to pursue his. It was ideal for both of them at the time; Ben didn't have to worry about money anymore and Donna didn't have to worry about being alone anymore. Until four years later, when Donna discovered that the birth-control pill was effective only about 98% of the time.  
  
Ben had wanted her to have an abortion. He told her he'd leave her if she kept it. It became a battle between them for weeks, with his threats and her pleas to let her have her baby. At last, Ben conceded that she didn't have to have an abortion but that she had to give the baby up for adoption as soon as it was born or he'd be gone. That idea left Donna almost as terrified as an abortion. She didn't want strangers to raise her baby. She couldn't even fathom that notion. She knew that some women could live with that but not her. It was then she knew that no matter what it took, she was going to keep her baby and raise it. She just didn't know how she'd do it without Ben finding out.  
  
The worst part was that Donna had no one to confide in. Her sister had moved to Seattle to start her own interior decorating business by that time and her brother was somewhere in South America working as an assistant to some big shot photographer. Even Lily couldn't be there for her as she had earned her Bachelor's degree and had moved back to London to work for one of her father's magazines. No one knew of Donna's troubles until the three of them flew back to Wisconsin that October for Donna's twenty-second birthday to discover that she was almost seven months pregnant. Nicole and Lily, who usually agreed on nothing, were both adamant about finding Ben and strangling him. Ben, of course, was conveniently away visiting a cousin, [who later turned out to be a girlfriend in Milwaukee], so he managed to get away with his life. T.J. on the other hand, was more concerned about Donna and the baby. The three of them learned of Ben's ultimatum and tried in vain to convince Donna to leave him. But for some reason, known only to her then and now, she couldn't leave him. No matter how much he'd hurt her or how terribly he treated her, she said she absolutely couldn't end the relationship with Ben. It was then that she told them that she wanted the baby and she wanted the three of them to help her figure out a way for her to do that without letting Ben know. Nicole initially offered to have Donna and the baby live with her in Seattle but Donna immediately vetoed that idea. As much as she loved her sister, it had been a struggle for sanity trying to live with her when they were growing up. The next few hours brought suggestions of everything from Donna moving to Europe with Lily to having Donna let Nicole adopt the baby so it could still be part of the family. Finally, after a seemingly endless night of arguing, tears, and begging they all reached a decision. One that had indirectly effected the situation that Donna was in today and had most certainly complicated it.  
  
"So how do you think I should go about this?" Josh asked Lily, breaking through the mini-haze of past memories that she had drifted off into.  
  
"Go about what?" she asked, confused as to what they were talking about.  
  
"Go about moving forward with Donna," he clarified. "How do I approach this? How should I court her?"  
  
"'Court her'?" echoed Lily with a hint of bemusement in her voice. "I thought that was an expression that went out with King Arthur and his knights."  
  
Josh rolled his eyes at her. "Are you gonna mock me or are you gonna help me?" he asked pointedly.  
  
"Oh I'm gonna do both," she smiled at him. "But seriously, I think you'll be okay. You're already starting out with her being love with you so the hard part is basically out of the way." She paused and gave him a look. "There is one thing that, in my opinion, you might want to take care before you go back to see Donna and drop down on one knee though."  
  
"What's that?" Josh asked, trying to pretend that he wasn't already thinking about a romantic way to propose in a hospital.  
  
"Take a wild guess," Lily responded sarcastically.  
  
Josh thought for a minute. "Settle things with Leo and work?" he ventured.  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Tell the rest of our friends?"  
  
"You're getting warmer."  
  
Josh gave her a funny look. "You don't want me to actually ask Nicole's permission that I get involved with her sister, do you?" he asked her warily.  
  
"Well, you could do all that," Lily declared cynically while gathering her trash and standing up. "But if I were you, I'd maybe want to break the news to my girlfriend that I've fallen in love with someone else."  
  
Amy. Josh hadn't thought about her since last night and thinking about her now made his stomach twist into a sailor's knot. "You mean 'Amy'," he admitted, following her lead and throwing his trash away.  
  
"Yes, of course I mean Amy," she sighed frustrated. "Why how many girlfriends do you have?"  
  
"One," he clarified, "though not the one I want to be my girlfriend. And trust me, Amy won't be after today."  
  
"Good," Lily answered, letting up on him a little. For all his faults, and Lily could tell he had many, he genuinely loved Donna and for that Lily was grateful. "I just want Donna to be happy," she continued in a gentler tone as the two of them left the café and headed out. They walked in silence until they were in the lobby and Josh spotted a gift shop.  
  
"Can we stop in here for a minute?" he asked, moving towards the entrance.  
  
"Why?" asked Lily, following him into the brightly lit little shop that carried everything from cards to sweatshirts with the hospital name on them.  
  
Josh had moved towards the small flower display in the back. "I wanna get Donna some flowers."  
  
"You sure that's a good idea?" she asked with an amused expression on her face. "It's not even your anniversary yet."  
  
"She told you about that?" he replied, his cheeks blushing slightly as he tried to find the perfect bouquet. It was then he saw the medium-sized arrangement of red roses off to one side. It wasn't too garish or showy, which Josh knew Donna hated, and maybe the flowers would perhaps in some small way convey Josh's newly realized feelings for her.  
  
"She'll love them," Lily assured Josh from behind him.  
  
"Good," he said, picking up the flowers and going to the cashier to pay for them. As the woman was wrapping them up in some paper, Josh turned back to Lily and said quietly, "I just want her to be happy too." He stopped and grinned at her. "In fact I think I wanna spend the rest of my life doing that," he finished softly.  
  
"I'm happy for you both," she replied, patting his shoulder.  
  
"I just wanna be with her," he continued as the cashier handed him his purchase and the two of them left the shop to head back upstairs. "I want to see her everyday, I want to marry her, I want to have a family with her."  
  
At that comment, Lily stopped thinking of Josh's romantic quandary and instead shifted her thoughts elsewhere. Namely to her best friend upstairs, who was fighting for her very existence, and to the blonde little almost five year-old girl in Wisconsin that Donna had so desperately loved and guarded for the girl's entire life, no matter what it cost her. 'My poor, little walnut' she silently thought of her godchild. 'If only you knew, my dear Emma, how much trouble you've inadvertently caused.'  
  
"Hey Lil?" Josh asked as he looked at her and she literally zoned out. The two of them had reached the bank of elevators. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah," she responded quietly, shaking her thoughts off. The worry over Donna and Emma lingered on.  
  
"Don't worry," said Josh calmly, reaching to press the elevator button. Lily was afraid for an instant that Josh had been able to somehow hear her thoughts. "I know you're worried about Donna. God knows I am. But she's gonna make it." He smiled at her before continuing. "Everything's gonna be fine," he said as he turned and stepped into the waiting elevator car.  
  
"That's what you think," Lily predicted under her breath as she joined him. 


	5. Chapter 5

Toby's Office: That Afternoon  
  
Whack. Pause. Whack. Pause. Whack.  
  
"Can I help you?" Sam asked in a strained tone, entering the office. He had been determined this time to ignore Toby's incessant bouncing but, like in many other things, Toby's patience had held out longer than his.  
  
"I don't know," replied Toby, putting the ball back down on his desk. "You haven't yet in four and half years so why break tradition?"  
  
"Ah," Sam knowingly said. "So we're gonna do this now."  
  
"This?" Toby questioned while putting his head back.  
  
"Yeah this," continued Sam, moving to sit on the plush sofa. "You know, were something's bothering you but you don't want to admit to it so you end up calling me in here to belittle me but I see through it and."  
  
"There are many, many things that bother me on a daily basis, Sam," Toby countered, "and you don't see me running to cry on your shoulder every hour, do you?" Sam just gave him that look, that wounded little puppy look he got whenever he couldn't fix something. Toby sighed and continued, "I'm worried about her."  
  
"About Donna?"  
  
"You know any other female companions of ours that is stricken with a potentially terminal illness?" Toby asked sarcastically.  
  
Sam rolled his eyes at Toby. He looked thoughtful for a second before replying, "I think she's okay. She's not getting any worse from what the doctor says. She's been better since her brother got here."  
  
"Yeah," said Toby uninterested. "I know all this."  
  
"Then what are you so worried about?" Sam inquired curiously.  
  
"Where'd CJ go?" Toby asked, changing topics, stopping his bouncing for second while he waited for Sam's response.  
  
"She was gonna go visit with Donna for a little while, then come back for the afternoon briefing," Sam said.  
  
Toby reached back for the ball and began the seemingly fluid action of throwing and catching his second favorite stress reliever. Since there weren't any Young Republicans that he could verbally and philosophically pummel into oblivion, he settled for the bouncing. Whack. Pause. Whack. Pause. Whack. Pause.  
  
Then all of a sudden, before Toby knew what had happened, Sam flew up from the coach and managed to intercept the ball as it bounced from the wall back to Toby. When it was over, Sam looked at the pink rubber ball and knew immediately that he'd crossed some unspoken line with Toby but he honestly didn't care at the moment.  
  
"Once more," Sam asked in a clipped tone, "what's worrying you?"  
  
Toby stared daggers at Sam and he wanted nothing more than to grab him by the collar and drag him from the bullpen. But it was a momentary flash of anger that burned out as quickly as it flamed up. Sam just wanted to help, like always, and sometimes he did it in a way that annoyed the never-ending crap out of people. But that was just Sam.  
  
"I'm worried about Donna." Toby started before Sam cut in.  
  
"As you've said but I want to know."  
  
"And Josh," Toby finished firmly.  
  
This threw Sam off his game a little. "Josh?" he repeated confused. "He's doing fine." Sam went back to sit on the couch. "I mean he's better now than he was last week. He's talking to us more, he's cutting back a little on work, he's spending more time with Donna."  
  
"Which is exactly the reason why I'm worried," Toby interjected solemnly.  
  
"Why?" inquired Sam from his place across from Toby. "You think it's gonna affect his work or something?"  
  
Although it could be somewhat endearing at certain, rare moments, right now Sam's naivete on the situation scared Toby. "Josh has been spending any moment that he's not here at the office at the hospital with Donna," Toby explained. "He hasn't been taking any high-level meetings recently and he's been working from home more often than not. You think that these are things that members of the Press Corp haven't noticed?"  
  
"He's taking some time off to help take care of a sick friend who used to be his assistant," Sam scoffed, not even looking at Toby.  
  
"He's ditching work to spend personal time with his twenty-something former secretary," Toby countered. Sam's head snapped back to look at him, a look of utter shock and disappointment etched across his face. "It looks bad, Sam," Toby continued. "We're in the middle of one of the closest elections of the twentieth century. The President is just starting to get back credibility with the public. Michigan and Florida are both up for grabs, we haven't had a single debate yet, Ritchie's people are taking every opportunity they can to run us off the side of the road, we're trying to get a landmark education bill that would give billions to inner city schools through a Republican Congress, and the Deputy C.o.S can't be bothered to attend any policy meetings because a beautiful, young staffer who works directly under him needs her hand held." He paused to let his words sink in. "That's what it's gonna look like when it breaks and if you don't think it'll break, I suggest that you get out of professional politics right now."  
  
"I can't believe you," Sam sneered going over to stand directly in front of Toby. "She's.. she's just.. she's the way she is now and you think now is the time to become the Morality Police? You think this is the kind of thing she should be focusing on now?!"  
  
"No I don't," Toby replied tersely. "I think the only thing that Donna should concentrate on is getting well again. But guess what? Not everyone else thinks like me."  
  
"And you have no idea how grateful the rest of us are for that fact," Sam spat out.  
  
Toby eyeballed him for a second before continuing. "Certainly," he said in a voice that was clearly fighting for some control, "not the press who write the papers. Or the public that reads those papers. Or the public that reads those papers and then goes to vote. They won't see the whole picture; they'll what they want to see. They'll see what entertains them. That's what politics is all about these days, Sam, entertainment. Choosing the leader of the free world has become cheaper entertainment than going to the movies."  
  
"Have you always been this much of a bastard and I just never noticed," Sam egged on, "or was this just something that happened recently because of the election? Because I can't think of any other reason as to why you'd think that two people, who've never been anything more than good friends with each other and you for that matter, could possibly think that."  
  
"He said that he loves her," Toby interrupted him, looking Sam straight in the eye.  
  
Sam was blindsided for the second time in the conversation. "What?" he asked, his anger at Toby momentarily put on hold. "When?"  
  
"Last night," Toby answered, backing down and going to sit on the couch.  
  
"Josh just told you he was in love with Donna?" Sam questioned, disbelief permeating his words.  
  
"Not me," Toby explained, "Leo. I was going by Josh's office to drop some revisions to the President's speech in Raleigh on Tuesday and Leo was in there talking with him. I didn't catch the whole conversation but I got the jist of it. Right before Leo left, Josh admitted that he loved Donna and that he didn't know what he was gonna do about it." He paused for a minute, letting his words sink in. "The Republicans are gonna have a field day with this. Congressional hearings, sexual harassment bills introduced, you name it, they'll try it. The AFA will make Josh and Donna the poster couple for Democratic immorality. There will be exposé's about Donna on Dateline and 20/20 with her old friends, lovers, second cousins twice removed. Her life won't be her own anymore. And CJ won't be able to stem the tide once the waves start rolling in. We won't be able to protect them. And while all this is going."  
  
"Donna's still sick," Sam grudgingly admitted.  
  
"Yeah," Toby answered softly.  
  
Sam pondered Toby's words for a moment before he turned back to Toby and said, "Will you excuse me?" and walked out before Toby could respond.  
  
Toby himself headed back for his desk chair, hoping to relieve some of his stress before he went back to meet with the President. He was searching around his desk area trying to remember where he'' placed the rubber ball when he heard a loud "whack" against the plexi-glass window that came from Sam's office. He stopped his search, figuring Sam needed to relieve his own stress more at that moment.  
  
Donna's Room: Same Time  
  
"So," CJ said nonchalantly to Donna, "how are you feel."  
  
"CJ, I swear on the Constitution of the United States that if you finish that sentence I will be held responsible for my actions," Donna cut her off, only half-kidding. CJ had been with her for a couple of hours now, talking with her about everything and nothing, trying in vain to distract her from where she was and what she was doing here. It hadn't worked although Donna appreciated the effort. She just felt like she was slipping away just a little bit more with each day that passed. Like right now, she felt more tired than she could ever remember being. It was scaring her. She wasn't ready to die yet. There was too much left for her to do. With work, with her education, with Josh, with her daughter.  
  
Suddenly, Donna felt dizzy. Dizzy, like she was falling off a cliff and she couldn't stop herself. Dizzy, like she'd spun in a circle for hours and hours. Dizzy, like nothing she'd ever felt before.  
  
"Donna?" she heard CJ voice ask her in a panicked tone. "Are you okay?"  
  
Donna couldn't answer. She couldn't speak, she couldn't move, and then she couldn't see as everything in the room went black.  
  
"Emma," was the last thing she whispered before she was sucked back into a dark oblivion.  
  
Offices of N.O.W.: Same Time  
  
Josh paced slowly against the gleaming black tile of the N.O.W. offices, continuing to wait for Amy twenty minutes after his scheduled appointment with her. He knew she was just playing a game with him but it was a game that he no longer had any interest in winning. He decided he was gonna break up with her pretty much as soon as he walked into her office. Just go in there and tell her that their personal relationship was over. He was gonna do it and she knew it too. She had to have known it, especially after what had happened during the past week. But now she was probably pissed that she couldn't end the relationship first so making him wait was Amy's little way of punishing him. Josh just hoped she'd hurry up. He had a phone conference with the Majority Leader at five o'clock that he couldn't get out of and he had flowers waiting in his car for him to give to Donna. She hadn't been back from her treatments when Josh and Lily went back upstairs so he decided that he'd kill time by settling things with Amy. Josh smiled to himself, thinking that by the time he got back to the hospital, he'd be free to pursue whatever was going to happen with Donna.  
  
Abruptly, Josh felt a pain in his chest, a sharp, searing pain that wiped the smile right off his face. It was so bad that Josh had to practically collapse onto the couch. Thankfully, it went away almost as soon as he sat down but the fear that had come along with it lingered on. Josh knew instinctively that something bad had happened.  
  
"Jay," he heard the familiar voice say to him as he stood and turned to look at Amy. Even on a Sunday, she was dressed in her typical D.C. power- wear while Josh was wearing a simple white tee shirt and oxford with a pair of jeans. The contrast was striking; Josh looked like he was going to meet someone at a coffee shop while Amy looked ready to take on a dozen Congressmen.  
  
"Amy," he answered casually. He saw her give him a quick once over before turning and heading back towards her office motioning for him to follow. When they got to her new office, he was surprised to see that the unorganized clutter that had existed in the office only a few weeks ago was now turned into an efficient workspace that any White House staffer would envy. Pretty impressive considering that she'd just been hired three weeks ago.  
  
"Wow, this place looks great," he commented neutrally. "I hardly recognize it."  
  
"Well, maybe if you stopped by once in awhile," Amy said in a deadly polite tone, "you'd have noticed sooner."  
  
"Amy, I'm not here to fight," he sighed in frustration. Everything was always a competition that had to be won or lost with her. "I just wanted to talk to you."  
  
"Okay," she said, going to sit behind her large mahogany desk. "Talk."  
  
He chose to remain standing, partly because he didn't want to get comfortable and partly because he wanted to maintain some semblance of control in this conversation. "I know we haven't seen each other much in the past week but with the campaign and all."  
  
"Yeah," Amy replied. "You've been busy. I get it. So have I. It's not easy being in charge of one of the most powerful women's political groups during an election year. So what do you wanna talk about?"  
  
He decided to just get it over with quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid. "I don't think that things are working out between us," Josh said quietly.  
  
Amy closed her eyes and nodded slowly. "And you arrived at this conclusion when exactly?" she asked sarcastically, not looking at him.  
  
"Last night," he told her honestly. "But it's been building for awhile. I think we both know that."  
  
"Yeah," she admitted. "I guess it has." She gave him a small smile, her hostility towards him dissipating once she realized she no longer had to angry at him for her being second in his life. "That's what sucks about being so determined to win all the time I guess, you don't always know when to quit."  
  
"I am sorry, Amy," he told her sincerely. "I'm sorry I screwed things up for you with Tandy."  
  
"Oh, trust me, that didn't have anything to do with you," she assured him. "Well maybe a little something," she added when she saw the slightest look of dejectment on his face.  
  
"Well anyways," he said after a few moments, "good luck to you."  
  
"You too," she replied, getting up to shake his hand. As he was almost at the door she added, "And to Donna too."  
  
He turned back to look at her surprised. "Excuse me?"  
  
She laughed out loud. "Oh come on, Jay," she said in a teasing voice. "You'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to see how much you love her. And vice-versa." She smiled softly at him. "I was actually referring to her being sick though. Everyone on the Hill knows about it and we're all concerned about her."  
  
"Even my good friends on the Christian Right?" Josh asked with a slight grin.  
  
"Hey, they'll all say that Donna puts together the nicest apology letters and fruit baskets of all the White House assistants," Amy replied smiling. "Why do you think they're always baiting you and not Sam or Toby?"  
  
"Well, there's some food for thought," he answered, going back towards the door. Once he was there again, he felt that same sharp pain in his chest that he'd felt in the lobby. This time, though it didn't go away immediately. When Amy saw him leaning against the doorframe, with his hand on his chest, she grew concerned.  
  
"Josh," she asked hurriedly. "Are all right?"  
  
"Um.yeah I think so," he told her even though he didn't believe it himself. He was positive something terrible had happened. "I'm, uh, just gonna go now."  
  
"Okay," she said, still not convinced. "You'll give my best to Donna and her family?"  
  
'Donna' his mind instantly blared. "Oh God," he muttered to himself, rushing out of the office.  
  
GWU: 1 Hour Later  
  
Josh arrived on Donna's floor roughly an hour later, having been delayed by late afternoon traffic and jogging up five flights of stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. When he got towards Donna's room he saw a large group of people gathered in the small waiting room. His heart dropped when he saw who they were. Lily was leaning back against a wall opposite Josh, her arms folded across her chest and her head turned away from him. CJ was sitting near Lily; her eyes glistening with unshed tears. Sam and Toby were talking in hushed tones in a corner of the room while several of the support staff, including Margaret, Bonnie, Ginger and Charlie were huddled in a small cluster of chairs towards the left of Josh.  
  
Charlie was the first to spot him. "Josh," he said, going over to the man that he looked up to like a brother and putting a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"What happened?" Josh panted out to no one in particular. "Where's Donna? What's wrong? I she."  
  
"She had a.attack or an episode, I don't know what to call it," Charlie told him, his eyes sympathetic. "They transferred her to ICU, which thankfully is on this floor. Nicole and T.J. are with her now. Dr. Flynn said he'd be out here as soon as he had some information for us."  
  
Josh was at a loss for words, something that he rarely dealt with. How could it all be going so bad, so fast? The woman he just realized he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was currently fighting for her own life and there was nothing that he could do about it. He couldn't ever remember feeling this helpless, not even when he was watching his childhood home burn to the ground in front of him while his sister was trapped inside. He leaned one hand against a wall and when he brought the other to his wipe his face, he was surprised to find the moisture from his tears line the palm of his hand.  
  
Dr. Flynn walked in then, followed closely behind by Nicole and T.J. Nicole looked like she was on the skinny end of losing it while T.J. just looked numb to everything around him, like he was debating something inside his head that no one could be let in on. They both took a seat while Dr. Flynn prepared to address the group.  
  
"We've managed to stabilize her," he said solemnly. "Her blood pressure dropped dramatically and she went into a cardiac arrest. We got her back but she's in a coma."  
  
"But she'll be okay, right?" Margaret asked in quiet desperation.  
  
The doctor looked at them all carefully, Josh especially, before continuing. "If she doesn't get a transplant within a week," he paused and swallowed, "there won't be anything we can do for her." Dr. Flynn always believed in being completely honest with his patients and their loved ones. Sometimes, honesty was the only left that he could give them. He averted his eyes from the group. "I'm so sorry."  
  
"You're sorry?" Josh asked him, venom lacing his every word. "She's dy. dying while you just sit around, not doing anything for her and you're sorry?!"  
  
"Josh." Toby started from his corner.  
  
"No don't, Toby," Josh shot back. "Don't try to defend the good doctor. He doesn't deserve it!"  
  
"Mr. Lyman, I understand how you must feel." Dr. Flynn tried to cut in.  
  
"Bullshit!" he shouted back, startling everyone in the room. "You know nothing about what I'm going through! Don't even try to say that about me!" He pounded his fist against the wall in frustration so hard that he dented the white plaster.  
  
"Josh, please stop it!" Nicole cried from her chair, tears streaming down her face. "This doesn't help anyone." He was mollified by her words and turned away from them all, burying his face against arms against the wall and crying harder than he ever remembered. Charlie put both of his hands on Josh's shoulders, trying to think of something to ease the man's despair and could come up with nothing. All he could do was silently be there for him while his own tears coursed down his cheeks. Taking a quick glance at everyone else in the room, Charlie saw that they were all pretty much in the same boat he was.  
  
"There's still time," Dr. Flynn said feebly. "We could still get a match. I'll call the registry, they have to have something by now."  
  
"But it's not likely, is it Dr. Flynn," Toby gently corrected him. He knew that Josh couldn't deal with being given even the smallest form of hope only to have it be snatched away. The doctor's almost imperceptible nod confirmed what Toby had asked.  
  
"I think," Toby said huskily, listening to the sobs of his dearest friends and co-workers, "that maybe we should, I don't know, figure out how to get everyone here that'd want to say good-bye."  
  
"Donna has a daughter," T.J. proclaimed quietly from his chair.  
  
Everything in the room stopped. The assistants looked at him strangely, Sam, CJ, and Toby turned to him with bewilderment in their eyes, Charlie and Josh's heads shot up from where they were standing, and Dr. Flynn looked at him confused. Only Nicole and Lily didn't stare at him as they hung both of their heads down low.  
  
"I'm sorry?" Dr, Flynn asked the young man.  
  
"I said Donna has a daughter," T.J. repeated, not looking at any of them in the eye. "She might be a match for the bone marrow."  
  
"I don't understand," Sam said to him baffled. "She has a daughter?" T.J. nodded, still not looking him in the eye. "How? I mean, I'm pretty sure I know how, but I mean with who?"  
  
"Ben Peterson," T.J. answered, wiping at his tired eyes. "He was the doctor that she dated in college."  
  
"Dr. Freeride?!" Bonnie exclaimed surprised. Almost all the other assistants suddenly recalled some of the stories they had heard about that particular boyfriend and one could tell by the looks on their faces that they did not recall him with any sense of kindness. "She had a child with that basta.?"  
  
"Yeah," T.J. answered, cutting her off. "A little girl."  
  
"How old is she?" Ginger asked curiously, somewhat over her shock. "Where has she been this whole time?"  
  
"She'll be five years old in a couple of months," Nicole told her quietly, breaking her silence. "She lives in Wisconsin with our grandmother."  
  
"So you all knew and choose not to say anything," Toby said frostily, looking at T.J., Nicole, and Lily with unabashed anger, "no matter what the detriment to Donna's life? You could've all opened your mouths as soon as you stepped off your planes and saved us all a lot of pain but you chose not to!"  
  
"That is not true!" Lily cried out. "We begged her to say something but she refused to. She wanted us to honor her request because it might be." Lily started choking up again, "it might be the last thing she ever asked us to do."  
  
"Emma," CJ whispered to herself. Lily, Nicole, and T.J. looked at her stunned while the others looked at her questioningly. "Her little girl's name is Emma, isn't it?" she clarified louder.  
  
"Yes," Nicole replied. "How did you know that?"  
  
CJ focused on a spot on her shoes, remembering that frightening moment with perfect clarity as she had watched her friend struggle for life. "It was the thing that she said before." She shook her head. "Her name was the last thing Donna said before she went into a coma."  
  
Dr. Flynn, who had been listening quietly to the exchanges, now stepped in. "We're going to need your niece and your grandmother to fly out here as soon as possible," he told Nicole. "I'll arrange for a private plane to bring them here. Where'd you say they lived again?"  
  
"In Madison, Wisconsin," Nicole told him, "but we have to be the ones to call her and explain things. You see, our grandmother, Mena, she doesn't really trust doctors."  
  
"You haven't told her yet, have you?" Sam condemned from his spot. "You haven't even told her that her granddaughter's dying, have you?"  
  
"What we've done," T.J. said, glaring at Sam, "or haven't done, has all been at Donna's request. Believe me, things would've been much different if we'd had our way"  
  
"Why didn't she say anything?" Josh finally spoke, his voice like sad, lost child. "In all these years, why didn't she ever.?"  
  
"I think that the important thing right now," Dr. Flynn interrupted, holding up his hand, "is to get this child here and tested before we let our emotions get the better of us. Nicole, if you could call your grandmother right now, I'll start making the arrangements for your niece, uh."  
  
"Emma," Nicole told him quietly, already getting up and getting her cell phone out.  
  
"Yes, Emma," he continued, making some notes on Donna's charts. "I'll start getting the arrangements ready so she can be tested once she gets here. I can actually get some of the preliminary testing out of the way if I could have access to Emma's medical files. Can someone.?" he asked as he headed towards his office.  
  
"I'll call her pediatrician," T.J. offered, rising to head for the bank of pay phones.  
  
Lily sighed and stretched out her neck. "I'll call my hotel," she told the group. "I'll get them a room there." With that, the three of them left the waiting area to make their various phone calls.  
  
"Well, uh," Toby fumbled after a minute. "We, ah, better get back to the White House. The President and the First Lady wanted an update. And we've, um, got meetings on the EEA so."  
  
"Yeah," said CJ, following him towards the door. Sam was behind them after giving the stunned Josh a reaffirming squeeze on the shoulder.  
  
"I'll handle things with the Majority Leader," he told Josh, not even sure if Josh could understand him at the moment. Josh blinked as if he hadn't realized Sam was there and nodded slowly. "You know, with the conference call."  
  
"Thank you," he said hoarsely. The events of the past twenty-four hours had certainly taken their toll on him.  
  
Slowly everyone filtered out of the room, except Josh who remained standing where he'd been since he'd walked in. Charlie patted him on the back before leaving and all the assistants gave him the smallest of smiles as they each walked out. Just before she left, Margaret turned back to him.  
  
"I called Leo just before you got here," she informed him. "He was on his way here. Do you want me to call him back and tell him to stay or.?"  
  
"No," Josh told her. "No I'll take care of it."  
  
With that, the room was empty, save Josh, and he was left alone to ponder this turbulent day that had so dramatically shifted the course of the rest of his life. From realizing the depth of his love for Donna, to almost losing her without her knowing what she meant to him, to finding out that she'd been keeping secrets from him since the moment they met. It was just too much for anyone to handle by himself, let alone him. He didn't know where to turn.  
  
Then, without him even realizing it, he'd gotten up and gone to the front desk. He told the young woman sitting there that if anyone came here looking for him, to tell them where he'd gone. After Josh had told the woman where he was heading, he went towards the stairs and began walking down them slowly until he reached the first floor. From there, he went down a series of hallways, guided by the maroon colored sings on the walls, until he reached his destination. Josh took a deep breath and opened the doors before walking in.  
  
Growing up in a predominantly Jewish community, he had had little understanding of Christian faith or customs as a young boy. It was only when he began attending school at Harvard, located near one of the most Catholic cities in North America, that he'd even seen the inside of a church, which he saw when he attended a Sunday Mass with a girl he wanted to impress. The gothic beauty and graphic art depictions of the last days of Christ along the walls had startled him at first. After his political career got off the ground and he began campaigning with first Hoynes and then Bartlet, he began attending many political rallies that were held in churches and chapels and eventually got used to how they looked.  
  
This intimate, hospital chapel was much smaller than the other ones that he'd been in. There were six rows of pews on each side of the aisle and every pew could probably hold no more than five people. There was a small alter in front with a pulpit in the center. A wooden crucifix hung on the wall behind the pulpit and candles lined the wall in front of the alter.  
  
Josh sighed and walked up to the front pew to the right of him. He sank down into the cool wood and leaned forward, resting his elbows across the stand and sinking his head into his hands. He didn't know why he'd come here, he just knew for some reason that here was where he needed to be right then. Maybe, at that moment, he needed some sort of connection to faith, even if it wasn't his own or maybe he just needed to be away from everyone right then. But he didn't know what brought him and now that he was here, he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He wasn't even sure how to act in a temple anymore, let alone a chapel. He was just.lost.  
  
'Just tell me what to do,' he pleaded silently in his mind. 'I know that you're not, in the purely dogmatic sense, my God and that I've probably committed numerous Christian sins many times in my life. But I swear, if you could just send me an answer, I swear that I'll try to.'  
  
"How you doing, kid?" he heard a gruff voice ask him. His head shot up and he turned around to see Leo standing in the doorway, looking at him concerned. He could only imagine how bad he looked at that moment.  
  
"I'd tell you if I knew," Josh answered, turning back to stare at the crucifix that held such meaning for so many others but was nothing more than a symbol to him.  
  
Leo walked slowly towards him until he was behind him. Before he sat, Leo bowed his head towards the alter and quickly crossed himself before sitting down in the pew behind Josh. Neither man spoke for what seemed like an eternity.  
  
"What does the bread taste like?" Josh suddenly asked him.  
  
"I'm sorry?" Leo stated leaning forwards slightly.  
  
"The bread," Josh repeated. "You know the body of Christ. The stuff that you guys get placed on your tongues. What does it taste like?"  
  
"It tastes like bread," Leo said stonily. "Dry bread, but bread nonetheless."  
  
"That's interesting," Josh told him, still not looking at him. "I mean, you'd think that something that was once a body would taste more like."  
  
"Josh, stop it," Leo told him sternly. "Stop babbling about bread, turn around, and tell me what's wrong."  
  
Josh made no move like he was going to turn or talk so Leo continued. "Margaret called my cell phone. Told me that Donna was okay for now but that you needed to talk to me about something. So what is it?"  
  
"Have you ever," Josh started, "just had a day or remembered a day that you wish more than anything that you could throw away and forget ever existed?"  
  
"Of course," Leo answered, not really sure where this was going. "Everyone has."  
  
"Well, I never used to think like that. I never used to live with regrets. It wasn't until today that I realized that I did," Josh replied. "Technically, I guess it was yesterday that it happened, but whatever. It doesn't really matter right now."  
  
"Josh, I don't understand where you're coming from," Leo said, desperate to understand what Josh wanted him to understand.  
  
"I wish I hadn't hired Donna," he said quietly, shamefully. "I know that's a horrible thing to say but it's true."  
  
"Why?" Leo asked him, stunned.  
  
Josh swallowed heavily before going on. "If I hadn't hired her, I never would have known her. I never would have loved her and I never would have been able to be this hurt by her."  
  
"Josh, it's not her fault she got sick," Leo told him passionately. "And it's not your fault either so I don't know."  
  
"She lied to me," he told Leo. "Hell, she lied to all of us, but to me the most."  
  
"I...I still don't understand, Josh" Leo repeated feeling helpless. "Please just stop talking in tongues and tell me what happened, Son."  
  
"She has daughter, Leo," he said quietly, turning at last to his mentor. "She has a little girl back in Wisconsin that she never told any of us about. Only her family and her best friend knew."  
  
"What?" Leo asked him perplexed. "What do you mean?"  
  
"The boyfriend, the doctor she put through med school," Josh clarified hurriedly. "She had a child with him. A little girl named Emma."  
  
"Donna." Leo repeated, hoping that Josh was going to correct him. "Donna has a daugh."  
  
"God!" Josh cried, smacking his hand against the pew. "I can't even stand to hear anyone else say it!"  
  
Leo reached out and grabbed his arm. "Okay, calm down Josh," he said carefully. "Just take a deep breath and calm down." Once Josh did that and Leo felt that he was ready to continue, he tried again. "Start from the top."  
  
And so Josh explained everything that had gone on from the point when Leo had left him last night. From going straight to Donna that evening, to the next morning with Lily, to ending things with Amy and feeling what he now knew to be empathy pains, to the confrontation in the waiting room no more than a half hour ago. By the time he finished, Josh was on the brink again and even Leo had to admit he himself was emotionally exhausted just listening to Josh.  
  
"How could she do this, Leo?" Josh asked him again when he'd finished. "How could she lie to me about something like this. I've never lied to her before. Well okay, I have but only about little things, like eating breakfast and she always catches me on those anyways so it doesn't really count. But to lie to someone that you care about, even if said someone doesn't realize how much you care about them, about something as big as being a parent is just."  
  
"Joshua Elijah Lyman," Leo interrupted harshly in the middle of Josh's soliloquy, "do you still love Donna?"  
  
That comment, and being interrupted, made Josh angry. "Of course I do," he said annoyed.  
  
"Is there anyone else in this world besides her that you want to see everyday for the rest of your life?"  
  
"No way."  
  
"Do you want to spend the rest of your life making sure that the world she lives in is worthy of her?"  
  
"Absolutely."  
  
"Would you, if given the chance, trade places with her right now to spare her the pain she's going through?"  
  
"In a heartbeat."  
  
Leo stopped and smiled softly at him. "Then what the hell's the problem?"  
  
Josh sighed and smiled back at him. Leo always did have a way of putting things back into focus. "I don't remember," he said. Then, he did remember. "I just wish I knew why she lied." Josh started in on again.  
  
Leo held up a hand to stop him before he went off like he did a minute ago. "I'm sure Donna and her family had their reasons," Leo admitted. "Whether or not they were valid, we shouldn't be worrying about this minute. Now, what we worry about is getting Donna back on her feet and back into your arms. Okay? Just trust me, kid."  
  
"Why should I trust an old geezer like you?" Josh scoffed good-naturedly.  
  
Leo smiled at him. "'Cause that's what sons do for old friends of their fathers."  
  
GWU: Later That Evening  
  
The group was gathered again in the small waiting room in the hospital that had become like a second home to many of them. While really a third home since to most of them, their first home was considered the White House. But there they all were, minus a few faces. CJ was back from the White House, having finished her briefings for the day, but Charlie, Toby, and Sam had to stay behind for a black-tie affair thrown by some bigwigs for the DNC. Carol and Margaret were there, representing the support staff and, of course, Josh hadn't even left, unless you count his excursion to the chapel. After Leo had left him to get back, Josh had spent the last several hours walking around the hospital grounds contemplating what he had learned about himself and others in the past forty-eight hours. Now he was back with the others, impatiently waiting for the arrival of Donna's grandmother and her child. The child that she'd kept hidden away from the rest of them for nearly five years.  
  
Of Donna's blood family, T.J. was the only on present. Nicole had become so upset after speaking with her grandmother on the phone that Dr. Flynn had finally given her something to help her sleep. Lily was outside, her nicotine craving just too strong to ignore, even at a time like this. But Josh could sympathize. The tension in the room was so palpable right then that if Josh had been a smoker, he was sure he would have chain-smoked his way through two packs by now.  
  
For the past hour, Josh had been alternately pacing around the room, chatting quietly with CJ about something unimportant, or shooting dirty looks at T.J. The later had become his personal favorite though T.J. didn't seem to be appreciating it very much. He finally got so frustrated that he voiced his displeasure.  
  
"Listen man," he sneered at Josh, "you have something you want to say to me, just say it to my face and get it over with."  
  
"Me?" Josh asked, feigning innocence. "Why would I need to say anything to you?"  
  
"Josh," CJ started, not wanting to watch WWIII erupt in front of her. From the little she knew about T.J., she could tell that he was the kind of person that was going to come out of the gate swinging with both fists and now was neither the time nor the place. "Just let it go for now, okay?"  
  
"No, it's all right CJ," Josh told her politely. "T.J. here, for some reason, is taking offense to the way I'm acting, though I can't imagine why. I mean, wouldn't you except a man who loves a dying woman to be just the slightest bit pissed that that woman's family had endangered her life for no reason."  
  
"Oh, get off it!" T.J. shot back. Margaret and Carol glanced at each other then quickly excused themselves, saying they were going to get something to eat. They did not want to stick around for this. "We were doing what Donna asked us to."  
  
"And if Donna asked you to jump off the Washington Monument," Josh countered dryly, "would you be willing to do that for her too?"  
  
"If it was a promise I made to her, than yes I would," T.J. replied calmly. "You see, in our family, we believe in keeping our promises to one another. It's something that we hold very sacred in lour family. That." He paused before he delivered the right-hook. "And honesty."  
  
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Josh asked angrily.  
  
"Coming from a man who's been playing spin doctor during this past year," T.J. challenged him, "for a man who lied to an entire country about his health, I'd think that."  
  
"Don't even try to compare the two!" Josh shouted at him.  
  
"Well, you're trying to make us out to be monsters here, Josh. What the hell am I supposed to do?!"  
  
"Take responsibility for the fact that it's partly your fault that Donna's in there right now!"  
  
"Screw you!"  
  
"Where the hell do you get off.?"  
  
"Uncle T.J.!"  
  
The three of them were startled by the small shout and even more so when a flash of blonde streaked into the room and ran straight to T.J. He recovered quickly and bent down just in time to grab the child and lift her up in the air, her voice squealing in child-like delight. Josh and CJ assumed that they were getting their first look at the mysterious Emma.  
  
"Uncle T.J.!" the little girl shouted again in a slightly lower volume than before. T.J. was holding her up to his chest and she had wrapped her coltish arms and legs around him. "I missed you so, so much!"  
  
"Well, I bet missed you more kiddo," T.J. teased.  
  
"Nuh-uh," responded Emma, shaking her head vigorously, her blond, curly locks flying everywhere. "I missed you a million times more."  
  
"Oh, a million huh," T.J. answered sweetly. "Well that's not bad but I missed you a billion times more."  
  
"I missed you a trillion times more!"  
  
"I missed you an infinity times more," T.J. playfully taunted.  
  
Emma promptly stuck her chin out defiantly and said in a superior tone, "I missed you a double-dog dare infinity times more than you missed me!"  
  
"All right, you win," T.J. grunted out as he gently set her down. "But there always next time."  
  
It was then that Emma noticed she wasn't alone in the room with her uncle. "Uncle T.J.," she whispered to him, "who are they?" she asked pointing to Josh and CJ.  
  
"Okay, first off, it's not polite to point," he mildly reprimanded her, "and secondly, you know who they are, sweetie. You've seen pictures of them remember? This is CJ Cregg," motioning to her, "and this Josh Lyman. They work at the White House, with Mommy. Can you say hi?"  
  
"Hi," she said shyly, casting her bright blue eyes down to the floor. She stuck a perfectly pink polished nail into her mouth and played with the hem of her yellow blouse, which matched beautifully with her little white, ruffled skirt. She wore a big white headband atop her blonde hair and two tiny gold studs were in her ears.  
  
"Oh, now don't be shy," T.J. said, prodding her forward. Emma still didn't budge. "She's like this around new people," T.J. told CJ and Josh unnecessarily. CJ nodded and smiled at the child but Josh was too busy staring at the little girl to be bothered with listening to her uncle. Emma had Donna's eyes, her nose, and her cheekbones. Looking at her, Josh felt like he could have been looking at Donna when she was four. He instantly got a strange feeling deep within in his heart, a quick tightness that didn't really hurt, but that made an impact nonetheless. Josh was quick to recognize what he'd used to be able to deny. He had had this same feeling the first time he saw Donna, only in a different way. He was falling in love with this child before he even said hello to her. It made him feel almost ashamed of the way he'd acted before. He had been completely indifferent to this child, who was an extension of Donna, when he'd first learned of her existence. Now, it seemed he almost couldn't remember what his life had been like before he saw Emma. 'Just like her mother,' he thought to himself with a smile.  
  
"Hey," Josh said, getting down on his knees and coming down to eye level with Emma. She cautiously lifted her eyes up to look into Josh's warm brown ones. "My name's Josh. I take it that your name is Emma. Am I correct in assuming that?" Emma nodded, a tiny smile gracing her lips. "Well, Emma it's a pleasure to meet you. Now, I know that we've just met but I'm gonna ask you a very serious and important question and I need an honest answer from you, okay?" Emma nodded again. Josh sighed dramatically and then continued, "Who are you planning to vote for in November? President Bartlet or Governor Ritchie?"  
  
"I don't know," she answered with a grin. "I can't vote yet. If I could I'd for the President," she added.  
  
"You can't vote yet?" Josh responded in mock horror. "Why I thought you were at least twenty-five! How old are you? Nineteen?" Emma started giggling. "Eighteen? Fifteen?" Emma's giggling had turned into full-blown laughter. "Well, I'm obviously terrible at guessing games so why don't you just tell me how old you are?"  
  
"I'm four, silly!" she laughed. She turned her head back up to her uncle. "You were right, he does sound like a big, old dumb..  
  
"And I don't think we've met," CJ cut the girl off, stealing a look at the two men before a word could come out of either of their mouths. "My name is CJ Cregg, it's very nice to meet you. You seem like a very smart young lady."  
  
"Likewise," answered Emma, giving her a brilliant smile. She looked back at her uncle excitedly. "Where's Mommy? Nana Mena said we were coming to see her."  
  
T.J. tried to divert her attention. "Yeah, where is Nana Mena anyway?" he asked Emma, looking around.  
  
"An old man with a white doctor's coat and one of the necklaces with the ear things came and met us when we got here," she said. They assumed she meant Dr. Flynn. "They're talking in his office. She told me to come see if you, Aunt Nicole, or Lily were here and to not get into trouble. Now where's my mommy?" she demanded.  
  
The three adults looked at each other and then back at the little girl, trying telepathically to decide how much information she could absorb without being too scared. None of them knew what was right to say or do, so Josh just decided to go with the first thing that came to his mind.  
  
"We're going to see Mommy later," he gently told the girl. "Right now though, you and I are going to the vending machine to get us some candy. How does that sound to you?"  
  
"Okay," Emma answered a little unevenly, sensing immediately that something was going on that she shouldn't know about. "Then can we see Mommy right after?"  
  
"Maybe later," he told her, reaching for her hand. Her chubby, sticky fingers wrapped around his hand and he silently looked at T.J. for permission. When he nodded, Josh and Emma headed out the room, each with different thoughts floating in their minds. Emma was thinking about how nice this man was and how right her mommy had been about him. Josh was thinking about how much he already cared about Emma after only a few minutes and how much he hoped he wouldn't have to tell her that she wouldn't be able to see Mommy again. 


	6. Chapter 6

GWU: 6:00PM Two Days Later  
  
"I still don't understand why you couldn't call me," Mena said to her grandchildren, a light Italian accent still gracing a few of her words.  
  
They were waiting outside Donna's room while the doctor was doing a quick examination. She was still in a coma, but the good news was that Emma was a preliminary match for donation. They just had to wait and see what the final analysis showed before they could go ahead with the procedure.  
  
"Bella is my grandchild, I practically raised her myself, and the both of you for that matter, yet the two of you thought." She continued pacing slowly in front of them with her arms folded, a position both Nicole and T.J. knew for a fact their grandmother only did when she was royally pissed. They had seen a lot of it in high school.  
  
"We didn't think that, Mena, I swear," Nicole tried to explain, as she had been trying to do for the past twenty-four hours "Donna asked us not to call you. She didn't want you to worry and we felt that she."  
  
"Was capable of making a rational decision at a time like this? I'm starting to think all that money I spent for you on college was an expense I could have done without, Nicolette," the old woman scolded her. She glanced over and caught T.J. trying to stifle the small grin that he got whenever he saw that his thirty-two year old sister still couldn't stand up to their grandmother, even after all these years. But the ironic thing was neither could he. "And you, young man," steering he ire at him instead. "You think that you're completely innocent in all of this too?"  
  
"No, ma'am," he answered promptly, his grin immediately fading.  
  
"Good," she responded, her anger lessening. "Now I've been listening to you two and Lily fighting cats and dogs with these people from the White House for the past day over right and wrong and God knows what else while Bella is fighting for her life in that room," pointing towards her room. She gave each of them a hard glare. "Now as of this moment, no more fighting or arguing amongst yourselves or with Bella's friends. What we do now is pray that Emma is a match and that your sister gets well. Understood?" Nicole and T.J. both nodded to the affirmative. They had both learned long ago that their grandmother was not someone to be trifled with.  
  
Philomena Rosemary Falansio, or Mena as her family always called her, had immigrated to America from a small village outside Rome when she was only thirteen after she'd been orphaned by horrific car accident that had killed her parents and three siblings. She had come to this country with dreams of becoming an actress. Upon her arrival in New York, she began making the rounds on the modeling circuit, believing that within a year, she'd be a star. A year later, she was a single, unwed mother to beautiful baby girl she named Antonia, or Toni as she was called. With no money, no job, and no family to help her, Mena decided to take her baby and leave New York for Wisconsin where she had a friend who said that Mena could probably find work.  
  
She didn't find work, so much, as she found a husband. A wonderful man for whom she thought the sun rose and set upon, along with Toni. His name was Hal Wilder, an older man who was twenty-five years old when they met, and a local doctor who was beloved by his patients and still made house calls, even on a Saturday. They met when Mena was sixteen and Toni was three and they were married two years later, with Hal adopting Toni and giving her his name. Together, they lived in Madison where he continued his small practice and she took on a job as a receptionist in his office. Everything was going wonderfully until Toni was fifteen and got into trouble. Big trouble.  
  
Abortion was still so taboo back then and even if it weren't, Toni wouldn't have done it. Instead, she and the baby's eighteen year-old father, Evan Moss, decided to get married before Evan was shipped out for his tour of duty in Vietnam. Seven months later, Nicolette Morgaine was born and Mena was a grandmother at thirty. Over the next six years, Evan returned home and two more grandchildren, Donnatella Igraine and Tomasso Arthur, [named after Mena's father], followed Nicole but everything in Mena's life shattered when her beloved husband, Hal, was struck and killed by a drunk driver while trying to help a passing motorist on the highway. A grief- stricken Mena was left with a twenty one-old daughter working two jobs, three grandchildren to help care for, all of whom were under the age of seven, an absentee, drug-addicted son-in-law, and a mounting pile of bills. So Mena did the only thing she knew how to do; she survived. In fact, she not only survived, she thrived.  
  
She went back to school and earned her degree in business. Over the next several years, she cultivated her love and talent of cooking into numerous, original recipes that allowed her to open her own gourmet food store, that later turned into a chain of stores all over the Midwest. She shared this newfound wealth with her daughter and grandchildren openly but never with Evan, who had grown detached and distant since his time in Vietnam had ended. Eventually, she and Toni would discover that he'd turned to drugs during the war and was a full-fledged heroin addict by the time he got home. He refused to try rehab and just came and went as he pleased, no matter how much it hurt wife and children. Of course he deeply loved the children, even Mena could see this, but he wasn't a father to him and Mena often told Toni this. But Toni, bless her heart, was determined to be a wife to him and honor her marriage vows, no matter what the cost to herself. But good intentions and determination were just not enough to save the marriage. One day, out of the blue, Evan just packed up and left. Woke up, left the house, and just never came back. He wrote occasionally to the children and they supposedly knew where he was living now but he was essentially gone from their lives. Mena, while sorry that her grandchildren were growing up without a father in their lives, was glad that her daughter was rid of that particular burden. But Toni's burdens became much heavier in December of 1985.  
  
She thought it was just a cyst, that's what the doctors had told her. But it wasn't. By the time they finally did the biopsy, the cancer had metastasized to Toni's lymph nodes and her lungs. They originally thought they could get all the cancer with surgery but after six months and twenty- two operations, everyone knew it was useless. Chemotherapy would only give her a year at the most but she wanted to end her life peacefully, not pumped full of chemicals that didn't allow her to function. So she decided to go quietly, without a fight. She and the children lived at Mena's spacious home during that time and it was painful for all of them to see Toni like that, especially Donna who insisted on sitting with her mother at least once a day. Finally, on June 2, 1986, Antonia Lysette Wilder past away at the age of thirty-two with her mother crying silently at her side. The children had already said their good-byes. Mena was only forty-six and she had buried both her husband and her only child. Mena wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed and just wait to die but she knew she couldn't. Nicole was fifteen by then, Donna had just turned eleven and T.J. was only about eight. Now Mena was left to finish the job of raising the children that her daughter had started.  
  
She did her very best and she thought it was a good job for the most part. Sure Nicole could be bossy and pig-headed and T.J. had gotten into a lot of trouble during high school. But they all made it through without killing each other so Mena considered it a success. Mena mostly survived because of Donna. She never would have admitted it to anyone, not even herself, but Donnatella, her sweet Bella as Mena had always called her, was the joy of her life, her saving grace. She was her mother's daughter in every way except for her father's wholesome Midwestern looks. The only thing that troubled her about Donna was the certain naiveté that she carried with her, something that got her trouble more than once. But Donna had never disappointed her, until Ben. Mena thought he was a louse from the start and repeatedly tried to warn her granddaughter but Donna wouldn't listen, much like her mother had been about Evan. And history repeated itself yet again.  
  
When Donna had come to her after Emma was born and asked her to take custody of the baby, Mena balked. She was only fifty-five years old and the idea of raising her great-granddaughter was not something that appealed to her. But after she saw the desperation and fear in Donna's eyes at the prospect of giving the baby up for adoption, her love for Donna won out. Emma Antonia Wilder, [she'd been given her maternal grandmother's maiden name since she had been born in same hospital where Ben worked and he insisted any record of the child's birth not tie him to it in anyway], had a home and not surprisingly, was her great-grandmother's favorite new toy by the end of day.  
  
Everything soon settled back to normal. When Donna finally left Ben three months after Emma was born, Mena pushed her granddaughter to leave Madison, saying she didn't belong here. After seeing the look on Donna's face when she saw a televised speech of Governor Bartlet, she urged Donna to go and find a job with him. At first, Donna balked at the prospect of having to leave Emma behind, since there was no way she could have worked on a campaign and taken care of an infant. But Mena knew, as she always did, what was right for Donna and assured Donna that she'd always be Emma's mother and that Mena would never let the child forget it. And she never did, not for minute. A day hadn't go by that Donna didn't talk to or email Emma and she saw her as often as possible. Donna was her mother, Emma just happened to live with Mena. And all had been well, until now.  
  
"Excuse me, Ms. Falansio?" a voice asked Mena. She turned and saw Dr. Flynn in front of her holding a sheet of paper. Nicole and T.J. both looked to him.  
  
"Yes?" Mena asked.  
  
"We have the results from the analysis of the blood work done on Donna and Emma," he started. The three of them all looked to him hopefully. He smiled at them. "She's a perfect match for Donna."  
  
At hearing the words, the three of them all had different reactions. Nicole had happy tears streaming down her face, T.J let out a quick shout of victory and started dancing around the room while his sister laughed at him. Mena closed her eyes and gave a silent prayer of thanks to the God she had cursed to for so many years. He'd finally come through for her.  
  
"Now it's a little late to get started on anything at this time of night," Dr. Flynn said, raising his voice to be heard over the celebration, "but we can get the initial paperwork out the way. Consent, insurance, all that can be taken care of."  
  
"Doctor, what are Donna's chances?" Mena asked him concerned.  
  
"Well I won't lie to you," he told them. "The odds aren't a hundred percent guaranteed that the transplant will work. That being said, I'm much more optimistic about her odds today than I was yesterday."  
  
"And Emma?" Nicole asked worriedly. "Are there any risks for her?"  
  
"Yes, there are. But there are risks in any type of medical procedure, especially on children. It'll be painful for her and she'll most definitely cry afterwards but I'm really not all that concerned. We've done this procedure on children much younger than Emma and they were perfectly fine within the next few days." He turned back to Mena. "If you could come with me now and get the initial paperwork out of the way, I can get the team together for tomorrow."  
  
"Of course," she told him. "I'll be there in a moment." He nodded and left the small group to celebrate. Mena turned back to her grandchildren and wrapped them both up into her arms. They stood like that for a moment, just letting the relief wash over them like a wave in the ocean. They finally broke apart and Mena immediately went into a more professional mode.  
  
"We have to call everyone," she said to the two of them. "I'm going to fill out this paperwork and you two are going to get in touch with everybody. Make sure to call Lily first, she should be back at her hotel by now."  
  
"What about Josh?" Nicole asked. "Shouldn't we call him first?  
  
"No he's already here," Mena told her. "I think he was going to get something he left upstairs last night. So, phone calls? Someone get on it."  
  
"I'll do it," T.J. replied, going over to the pay phones. He stopped and turned back sharply when he reached the end of the hallway. "Wait, what about Emma? I mean shouldn't we be telling her about tomorrow?"  
  
"Yes, of course we should," Mena conceded, rubbing her forehead. She looked around as she suddenly remembered that Emma wasn't with them. "We'll need to tell her about Donna to. Oh, it's gonna be so hard for her to understand." She sighed softly and looked up. "Where did she go?" Emma usually waited in a small playroom that was visible from where they were standing but Mena couldn't see her from where she stood.  
  
"I took her back up to the room to lie down before I came to see Donna," answered Nicole. "I'll go up and get her." She went to the elevators and got on, pushing the button for her floor. She waited patiently, lost in her thoughts, until she heard the ding and the doors opened. She departed the car and headed to the rooms that her family was occupying during Donna's stay here. She walked into the room where Emma's things were and prepared to speak. "Emma, honey, time to wake." the words died on her lips as she took in the scene in front of her.  
  
Her niece was sprawled out on top of a body, a blanket covering her back. Her hair was in pigtails and she was holding on to a ragged-looking stuffed dog that she had had since she was an infant. She looked content and peaceful, lost in the simple sleep that children are blessed with. But it wasn't Emma's appearance that surprised her; it was the appearance of what, or rather whom, she was lying on.  
  
Josh Lyman was sleeping underneath Emma, fully clothed, his mouth slightly open and small line of drool dripping onto his pillow. His hair was mused, his dress shirt looked wrinkled, and his coat was tossed haphazardly on the floor. And even though the blanket covered most of him, Nicole could see through the outline of the blanket that Josh's arms were wrapped around the girl, holding her steady and protecting her from whatever fears may come to her. The image was striking to Nicole. It caused a little seed of happiness to begin to spread through her but which was just as quickly was replaced by fear. Fear that something could go wrong tomorrow, fear that everything wasn't as simple as the doctor said it would be, and fear that even if everything went fine tomorrow Donna and Emma could still get hurt. Not by medicine but by man, the man Nicole was looking at now. Nicole had seen so many men hurt her sister in the course of Donna's life; their father, Ben, even Josh had caused her some form of pain over the years. She knew that Josh deeply loved her sister but love didn't guarantee anything. Now, looking at the sleeping figures in front of her and thinking about how much time Emma and Josh had spent together over the past two days, Nicole realized that Donna not only had to worry about herself being hurt by Josh, she also had to worry about protecting her little girl's heart too.  
  
"Hey," Josh's gravely voice surprised Nicole out of her reverie. He looked at her with tired eyes and carefully brought one of his hands out of the tiny confines of Emma and the blanket to rub the sleep from his face.  
  
"Hey," she answered back once she had her breath. She glanced at Emma with a small smile. "What happened?" she asked gesturing to the slumbering child.  
  
"Oh, I just came up here to grab my coat and she was still awake," Josh explained quietly, keeping his voice low so not to disturb the little girl. "She said she had a nightmare and she asked me to read to her," motioning with his hand towards the worn copy of "Where the Wild Things Are" that rested on the bedside table. "She was still kind of scared so I got up here to read with her and she just ended up like this before I knew it." He looked down on her with a smile, seemingly enthralled with the tiny body, her back moving up and down as she quietly inhaled and exhaled, that was flung on top of him. "She's really quite something, isn't she?" he commented, his awe for the girl reflecting in his tone of voice.  
  
"Yeah," Nicole responded the fear inside her growing. She looked at Josh seriously before continuing. "She's a perfect bone marrow match for Donna. Dr. Flynn just told us when we were down there."  
  
Josh closed his eyes and leaned his head back, letting Nicole's words sink into his heart. A full-blown grin broke out on his face and single tear escaped the corner of one of his eyes. Lines of worry disappeared from his face and he mouthed the words 'thank you' up towards the ceiling. Nicole smiled at his reaction, her fear momentarily forgotten. He opened his eyes and looked back at her. "When will they do the procedure?" he asked her.  
  
"Probably tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan," Nicole replied. She reached out with her hand and gently smoothed it over Emma's head. "We have to tell her about Donna tonight," she continued.  
  
"Yeah," Josh sighed, not wanting to put Emma through that. "How is she? Has there been any.?" he asked hurriedly.  
  
"No, no changes," Nicole said shaking her head. "Dr. Flynn already said he didn't expect her to regain consciousness unless she got the transplant so I guess this is normal." She let out a deep breath and looked back at the tranquil expression on Emma's face. "I wonder how she'll take this."  
  
"I don't know," Josh told her honestly, his arms instinctively tightening around Emma's small body. "She already knows something's wrong with Donna, she just doesn't know what. I think that's scared her more than anything else."  
  
Nicole glanced at Josh surprised. No one else had caught onto that. "What makes you say that?" she asked suspiciously.  
  
"She told me this morning," he said. "She kept asking me to just tell her what was wrong with Donna. I wanted to tell her but I didn't think it was appropriate coming from me. It should be from you guys."  
  
"Yeah, it should be," Nicole agreed, her heart growing heavy as she imagined her niece's reaction. She thought back to how Emma had been acting for the past two days, how happy she had seemed whenever she spent time with Josh. "Will you be there with us when we tell her?" she asked him quietly. "It would mean a lot to us if you were and I think it'd be easier for her if you're there."  
  
"Of course I'll be there," he replied, surprised that she even thought she had to ask. "And I'll let you guys explain everything, she'll probably be more comfortable talking to you guys about it than she would me."  
  
"It looks like she's pretty comfortable with you too," she assured him. "Josh?" she asked tentatively.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
Nicole tried to organize the thoughts in her head so they'd make sense to him when they came out. "What are your..? I mean how far do you think..? Where does Donna..? What I mean is..?" she jumbled out.  
  
"Nicole just say it, whatever it is."  
  
"Is Donna the one you want to be with or are you just here out of guilt?" she spit out quickly, the words almost tasting bitter on her mouth. When she saw the look on Josh's face before he turned away from her, she instantly regretted what she'd said. He looked like she had always imagined he looked when he was shot. "I'm sorry," she told him contritely. "I'm so sorry, it's just in all these years you've never once said anything to Donna about how you felt and now all of a sudden." she motioned towards Emma. "What I mean to say is, if this is something you're doing out of pity, it'd probably be best if."  
  
"I've loved Donna since the first moment I saw her," Josh cut in. He didn't look at Nicole, choosing to focus on a spot on the ceiling. "I just didn't know it then but I do now. I think I was just so afraid of what I felt," he continued, his voice calm and quiet, never wavering. "I've never needed anyone in my life the way that I need her and I don't mean with work. She's just." he sighed softly. "I can be having the lousiest day at the White House and all I have to do is look at her smiling about.anything and suddenly everything's not all that bad anymore. She's it for me, the only one I want to be with. I'm never going to love anyone else the way I love her. I didn't want to admit it before but I don't have a choice anymore. There's no going back for me. I've got too much to lose now if she ever decides to leave me again," he finished. He moved his head forward and placed the softest kiss on Emma's head. The little girl stirred ever so slightly and nuzzled her face closer into Josh's chest. He pulled away and looked at Nicole, whose eyes were misting over, and gave her a half-hearted grin. "I just hope she feels the same way about me," he said sheepishly.  
  
Nicole laughed softly at him. "I think I can say on good authority that that should be the least of your worries at the moment, Josh," she told him smiling. She paused and looked down. "I really am sorry about that. It's just that Donna's been hurt by so many men before. And with everything that's going on now." she trailed off.  
  
"It's okay," he told her, reaching over to cover his head with his own. "I understand. You want to protect her from being hurt. I'd do the exact same thing." The silence comforted them both as they watched Emma sleep peacefully for a couple of minutes before Josh spoke up again. "Listen I want to ask you something, but if you don't feel right telling me, that's fine."  
  
"Shoot."  
  
"What happened between Donna and Dr. Freeride?"  
  
Nicole looked confused. "Dr. Freeride?"  
  
"Ben," Josh cleared up. "Emma's." he paused searching for the right words.  
  
"Sperm donor?" Nicole supplied, a little bit of a playful tone in her voice.  
  
"Yeah, that'll do," he grinned at her. "I think I understand the basics of what happened between them. I mean, I know where they started and where they finished but what I'm not sure is."  
  
"At what point Emma came in," Nicole finished for him.  
  
"Yes, if you don't mind me asking," he said.  
  
"Well," Nicole started sitting down in the chair by Josh. "Would you be okay with the 'Cliff's Notes' version or would you prefer the 'Shakespearean Tragedy' version?"  
  
"The 'Cliff's Notes' version will suffice," he told her.  
  
"Well to make a long story short," she explained, first checking to make sure the child was still asleep, "Emma was the accidental yet joyful result of a birth-control mishap. I should say for Donna, she was the joyful result. Ben was another story. He didn't want her to be born and Donna fought like a mother lioness to protect her and have her. Eventually Ben told Donna she could have the baby if she gave her up for adoption. And when Emma was born, instead of giving her up, Donna asked our grandmother to take custody of her so she could still be a mother to her. Mena did and the rest is pretty self-explanatory."  
  
"What about Ben?" Josh asked his voice laced with contempt for the man.  
  
"He doesn't know Donna kept her," Nicole told him cautiously. "He thinks Donna really gave her up. To be honest, the rest of us didn't do much to dissuade that notion. But believe me, Emma's much better off without that ass in her life." She gave him a tiny half smile. "I just wish she didn't have to grow up without a father."  
  
"Well," said Josh seriously, while rubbing the child's back, as she seemed to be awakening slowly "maybe now she won't have to."  
  
White House Residence: That Evening  
  
"That's great, Leo," the President said into the phone. He was in the process of getting dressed for an important fundraiser, as was Abbey, who was in their bathroom. She had just returned from a campaign stop in Seattle and had only a moment to give her husband a kiss and affectionately call him a jackass before going to get ready.  
  
"So when are they going do this? Are they sure it's safe.All right, that's fabulous.. Tell her family that their in my prayers.Leo, for God's sakes man, I think at a time like this, they're not going to care if the President of the United States is Catholic.Of course I knew you were only kidding just then.Well, anyways, I've got this thing now.Yes, I'm going to make sure my head is there and not elsewhere.Make sure Toby and Sam have the final draft of the Kansas City speech ready for tomorrow morning.All right, thank you Leo. Good-night."  
  
"Was that Leo?" Abbey asked as she exited the bathroom in an elegant, sapphire evening gown with her hair styled into a fashionable bun. She was going around the room looking for where she had put her shoes.  
  
"No," Jed told her as hung up the phone, "it was actually an elderly Chinese woman living in Miami whose been reading tea leaves for me to determine how much time I should waste campaigning in Florida before the election."  
  
"So many attractive, intelligent men in the universe and I get stuck with you," Abbey told him sarcastically. "So what did Leo-Chang want?"  
  
"He was calling to tell me they found a match for Donna," he told her happily. "She's going to have the transplant tomorrow."  
  
"Oh that's wonderful," Abbey sighed relieved. "I was so worried that they weren't going to find a match in time." She went over to Jed and gave him a loving kiss.  
  
"What was that for?" Jed asked, when she pulled back.  
  
"I don't know," Abbey shrugged. "Just felt like it I guess." She went off back in search of her high heels. "So how'd they get it?"  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"The bone marrow," Abbey asked, coming out of the closet, shoes finally on her feet. "Where'd it come from?"  
  
Jed closed his eyes and turned to face her slowly. "I didn't have this conversation with you, did I? I just deluded myself into thinking I did."  
  
"What conversation?" she questioned.  
  
"Well, you're not going to believe this," Jed told her, going to get his suit coat. "But the donor is Donna's daughter."  
  
Abbey stopped putting on her earrings and looked at Jed like he had grown a second head. "What?" she asked disbelievingly. "What daughter?"  
  
"The daughter she had right before she joined the campaign and didn't tell anyone about, except for her family," Jed clarified.  
  
"Donna has a daughter?" Abbey mimicked shocked. "My God. How old is she?"  
  
Jed thought for a second. "I think Leo said she was almost five years old. She must have only been a few months or so when Donna joined."  
  
"What's her name?"  
  
"Emma," he answered her. "According to CJ, she looks just like Donna."  
  
"My God," Abbey repeated. "How did Josh take it?"  
  
"Well that's the strange part."  
  
"As if nothing else that's happened in the past few weeks has been normal?" Abbey asked incredulously.  
  
"Well from what Leo told me," he continued, ignoring her, "Josh has had a most unusual reaction."  
  
"He went insane?" she asked dryly, wrapping a shawl around her shoulders  
  
"Yes but not in the way you think. My sources tell me the kid's got Josh wrapped around her little finger three times over."  
  
Abbey pinned him down with a humorous glare. "What sources do you have?"  
  
"I don't know if you've noticed or not, Lovebug, but we happen to be living in the most visited and secure home in the country and it isn't because the real estate agent got us a great deal on the place," he snarked, gesturing around the room. "What sources do I have?" he scoffed.  
  
"But seriously," Abbey continued, "Josh is all right with everything?"  
  
"Let's put it this way," Jed told her, going over to take her arm as they left the room. "If things keep going the way they're going with Josh and Donna, I have it on good authority to believe that we will be attending a wedding in the Rose Garden this time next year."  
  
"You are a meddling gossip, Mr. Bartlet," she teased, going down the hallway to meet the waiting agents.  
  
"I prefer the term 'hopeless romantic', Ms. Barrington," he gave her back, as they exited the White House into the waiting limo.  
  
GWU: 7:30 PM That Evening  
  
"So did you're dinner taste good, sweetie?" Mena asked her great-grandchild who was sitting next to her. She and Emma were sharing dinner with Nicole, T.J., Lily, and Josh in the hospital cafeteria. The five of them were trying to come up with a way to tell Emma about her mother in a way she'd understand but nothing had seemed right. It seemed they were stuck in a never-ending state of limbo.  
  
"It was okay," Emma shrugged, crinkling her face slightly. "It would've been better with the little hot dogs cut up." All the adults smiled at her indulgently. She figured it was her perfect opportunity to get something she'd been waiting for since she got here. "Can we go see Mommy now?"  
  
"Uh, maybe in a little while, Walnut," Lily tried stalling her, exchanging glances with the others. "First, why don't we."  
  
"No!" Emma screeched abruptly. The other four looked at her, surprised by her tone. "I wanna see my mommy right now!"  
  
"Emma," T.J. said gently. "Please listen."  
  
"Why can't I see Mommy?" Emma said her voice changing from one of anger to one laced with unshed tears. "Is there something wrong with her?" Then another, even more disturbing thought entered her young mind. "Does she not wanna see me?" Emma asked timidly, tears following slowly down her cheeks.  
  
All of the adults looked at each other, their collective hearts breaking into a million pieces at seeing the pain etched on this child's face. They knew that had to tell her right then, no matter what words they used. She needed to know.  
  
"Emma Antonia," Mena said, using her full name to get her to realize how serious the situation was, "we need to tell you something." Emma looked at her beloved nana with her wide blue eyes and listened carefully, wiping the small tears from her eyes with her chubby little hands. "You're mommy is very sick right now. That's why we're all here and why you haven't been able to see her yet. It is not, I repeat not, because she doesn't want to see you."  
  
"Sick, like she has a belly bug?" Emma asked plaintively, thinking that that was the only kind of sick there was. "The doctor can give her medicine for that, can't he?"  
  
"No, my precious, she doesn't have a belly bug," Mena answered her, turning her chin up to look at back at her. "She's very, very sick right now. That's why we're all here in the hospital, to make sure the doctors make her all better."  
  
Emma looked at all of them carefully before asking, "Well how do the doctors make her better?"  
  
"Actually," Nicole said, clearing her throat, glancing at the adults to make sure they were okay with her taking the initiative, "They need some help with that, with making Mommy better. They need something very special that only a few people have. And they found out you're the only one of anyone here who has that, so you get to be the one to help them."  
  
"Really?" Emma replied, her eyes lighting up excitedly. "I get to help make Mommy better? How?"  
  
"Uh, well," Lily started, trying to think of a way to explain the procedure to Emma without scaring her. "The doctors need to take something from you and give it to Mommy. That'll make her better."  
  
"What do they need? I'll give them whatever they need for Mommy," Emma stated, without a hint of trepidation in her voice.  
  
"That is very good of you, kiddo," T.J. told her, bending and giving her a kiss on her forehead. "The thing is, to get what they need, it's inside your body. So they have to do something to you that's going to hurt a little bit."  
  
"How?" inquired Emma, her bravery suddenly replaced by little flutters of nervousness in her stomach.  
  
"Well, they're going to use a needle to take something called marrow out of your body," explained T.J., trying not to use big words Emma wouldn't understand. "They're going to take the marrow from you and give it to your mommy. When she gets that, the doctors say she should get better. But the cool thing is," trying to cheer her up just a little, "is that they're going to be doing this while your asleep, so you don't feel a thing while they do it. You'll just be a little sore when you wake up, like that time you hurt your head during soccer."  
  
"When do I got to do this?" Emma squeaked out.  
  
"Tomorrow," Nicole told her, trying to sound positive, "so we have to hurry up and finish eating so we can get you to bed, missy."  
  
"Oh," the little girl stated. She started playing with the ends of her pigtailed hair, not really looking at anyone. None of them knew whether this was good or not. They thought she would have questions but maybe since she didn't, it meant she understood everything. Or maybe it meant she was too scared to articulate her fears. "I'm tired," she suddenly announced. "Is it okay if I go to sleep now?"  
  
"Well, we're almost done eating, sweetie," Mena responded, motioning to everyone's half-empty plates. "I'll take you up then."  
  
"But I'm tired now," Emma complained, putting on her best whining pout.  
  
"I can take her," Josh told them standing up, finally speaking out after remaining silent through the conversation. "I'm full anyways."  
  
"Are you sure?" T.J. asked, getting up as well and eyeing him. "I can do it, you probably have more important places to be right now than here," his dislike of Josh not hedging one bit in past few days, no matter how well Josh had treated Emma or anyone else in the family.  
  
"Tomasso," Mena said sternly, rising up to look him straight in the eye. "Please try to remember your manners in the company of young ladies such as us," she said while indicating with her head towards Emma, who was seemingly unaware of her uncle's dislike for her newest hero. T.J., mollified, sat back down. "Thank you, Joshua," she said politely, turning towards we he stood with her great-granddaughter at his side. "You won't have any problems tucking her in?"  
  
"Nah, we'll be fine," he assured her, putting on his suit coat. "Won't we, Emma?" he asked, reaching down to tickle her stomach a little bit. The girl exploded in a fit of giggles.  
  
"All right, my sweetheart, goodnight," Mena said, bending down to kiss the girl on her cheek and give her a quick hug. "You put on the jammies I left out for you, go right to bed, and shut your eyes real tight, understand?"  
  
"Yes, Nana," the girl answered, already going over to say goodnight to her aunt and her godmother. "Goodnight, Aunt Nicole, goodnight Lily."  
  
"Goodnight, honey," Nicole told her giving her a quick hug.  
  
"Sleep well, Walnut," Lily replied, kissing Emma while Nicole was hugging her.  
  
"Goodnight, Uncle T.J.," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.  
  
"Oh, goodnight, kiddo," he told her, rocking her back and forth a little. "I love you."  
  
"Love you, too," she told him, letting go and reaching out for Josh's hand  
  
"Goodnight, everyone," Josh told them giving them a wave. "I'm gonna take off after I get her to bed. I'll be back early tomorrow." They all acknowledged this with a nod and the pair left the cafeteria and headed to the elevators. When they got onboard, they were the only two in the car and Josh pressed the button for their floor. Emma, on the other hand, stood up on her tiptoes to press the button that she suspected was the floor her mother was while Josh wasn't looking.  
  
"Emma what are you doing?" Josh asked her when he noticed a second later.  
  
"I wanna see my mommy," she stated simply.  
  
"I know you do," Josh said crouching down on one knee to get to eye level with her. "But we have to get you to bed right now."  
  
"Will I get to see her in the morning?" Emma whined softly.  
  
"I.. I don't know," Josh shrugged, feeling helpless.  
  
"Then why can't I see her now?" the child countered.  
  
"Mommy's sleeping right now," Josh told her, rationalizing to himself that he wasn't really lying to the child. Technically, Donna actually was asleep although it was a sleep no one knew if she'd wake from.  
  
"I'll be real quiet," Emma promised. "I won't say a word to her or make any noise. I just wanna see her."  
  
Josh's resolve was crumbling. He knew he'd promised Donna's family that he'd let them handle things with Emma but Josh felt a love and a loyalty for her that told his brain that he owed Emma this. If things tomorrow didn't go as planned, Emma might never get the chance to say goodbye and if anyone knew the pain of not being able to say goodbye to a loved one, it was Josh. The elevator bell dinged and the doors opened to reveal them to be on the floor of the ICU. Emma looked up to Josh with wide, hopeful eyes until he took her hand and led her off the car.  
  
"Just for a few minutes," he instructed her. "And you have to be on your best behavior." She nodded her compliance and he walked her down the dark hallway towards Donna's room.  
  
"Excuse me, Josh?" he heard a familiar voice ask him. He stopped and turned to see Michael Flynn, standing at the admit desk looking at him and Emma. "What's going on?"  
  
"Do you ever leave this place or do you just like live in your office?" Josh joked, trying to distract the doctor. The frown on Dr. Flynn's face made Josh conclude it had not been successful. So he tried honesty. "I was just going to take Emma to see her mommy real quick before she goes to bed," he stated, praying the doctor would understand. "Since she hasn't seen her yet and she won't be able to tomorrow. That's all right, isn't?"  
  
The doctor looked at him for a moment before his eyes settled on the girl in front of him. She gave him a small smile, as she recognized him as the man her nana had been talking with a lot lately.  
  
"Hi," she said quietly. "My name is Emma."  
  
"I know," the doctor said to her kindly. "My name is Dr. Flynn. I'm treating your mommy."  
  
"You're the one that's gonna make her all better?" she asked in awe.  
  
"I'm going to try but you're gonna help me out, right?"  
  
"You betcha," she answered with a firm nod of her head. "Can I go see my Mommy now?"  
  
"Well," he started sternly, "it's against the rules for visitors to be here this late and even more so when the visitors barely come up to my waist." Emma looked crestfallen. "But," he continued, "I think perhaps, on this one occasion, we can make an exception. You have to promise not to tell anyone though, Miss Emma, I have a reputation to maintain as the meanest old doctor in this hospital." She giggled at him and he put the files he had in his hands back on the desk. "Why don't I bring you down there personally?"  
  
"Okay!" Emma said, before Josh could answer, practically bouncing in her shoes.  
  
"But before we go down there," he said, motioning for them to sit down on one of the small, plastic chairs against the wall, "I need to explain some things to you, Emma." The group turned to sit down and on seeing there were only two chairs, Josh pulled Emma into his lap and settled her there, a gesture not lost on Dr. Flynn, who gave him an approving smile over Emma's head.  
  
"Now Emma," the doctor started seriously looking her in the eye. "You're mommy is real sick right now. Did your great-grandmother explain that to you?" She nodded her head thoughtfully. "Good. Did she tell what was going to happen tomorrow?" Again, she nodded. "Even better. Do you have any questions about tomorrow, anything you want to ask me?"  
  
Emma bit her lip and looked like she was in deep thought for a second before responding, "Can you make my Nana give me a big bowl of peppermint ice cream when I wake up tomorrow?"  
  
"Peppermint ice cream?" Michael laughed along with Josh. "Peppermint ice cream. Why yes, I believe I can but you have to share some with me. Deal?" he asked, still smiling and sticking out his hand.  
  
"Deal," agreed Emma, giving his hand a firm shake.  
  
"So you're okay with what's gonna happen tomorrow?" the doctor asked, just trying to be sure that Emma understood what was gonna happen.  
  
"Yep," she told them solemnly. "I just want Mommy to be better."  
  
"That's what we all want," the doctor assured her. "I want to talk to you about your mommy for a minute and what you're going to see when you go in there."  
  
"Josh told me she was sleeping," she said, turning her head back to look at him.  
  
"And he's right, your mommy is sleeping," he explained. "But since she's so sick, we had to do some things to her to make sure she was okay while she was asleep."  
  
"Like what?" Emma asked curiously.  
  
"Well, the big thing is we had to put a tube her mouth to make sure she was breathing okay while she's asleep," he told her honestly. "There are also some tubes in arms to give her medicine and some machines in the room that tell us doctors how she's doing. Now none of these things hurt her at all, they just look a little scary." He paused for a breath. "Another thing is, because Mommy's so sick, we can't have any yucky germs get to her because they could make her sicker. Do you know what germs are?"  
  
She nodded. "There the things that make Nana make me wash my hands like, a hundred thousanty times a day," she complained, crinkling her face.  
  
"Yep," Dr. Flynn answered. "So in order to keep the germs out, whoever goes in Mommy's room has to wear a special gown, gloves, and mask to make sure the germs on them don't get to your mother. Do you understand?"  
  
"I think so," Emma said squinting her eyes like she was concentrating. "Will Mommy wake up if I talk to her?"  
  
"No, sweetheart, she won't" the doctor admitted. "But that's only because she's in a very deep sleep. Haven't you ever been so asleep that nothing in the whole world woke you up?"  
  
"Uh-huh," she told them both. "One time, I was taking a nap on the porch swing and these big dogs got into a big fight on the front lawn, right in front of me, and they were barking real loud but I didn't wake up at all. Nana said that meant I had a good disposition. Uncle T.J. said that just meant I was abnoromalel," she finished, struggling a bit with the word 'abnormal'.  
  
"Well it's just like that for Mommy," Dr. Flynn assured her. "Do you still want to go see her?" She nodded her head so vigorously that Dr. Flynn was almost afraid she'd end up snapping her neck. "Then let's go, shall we?" The group got up and headed down towards the desk, where Dr. Flynn fetched them all some blue hospital gowns, gloves, and facemasks. Once everyone was ready, they headed back to Donna's room. When they got there, Dr. Flynn grabbed her chart from the door slot and Josh reached for Emma's hand. He opened the door and the three of them stepped inside.  
  
"Mommy?" Emma whispered, when she saw the figure on the bed. Donna was still in a hospital gown covered with to the waist with a blanket. Her arms rested at her sides, her blonde hair billowed out over the pillow, and her eyes were closed. She almost looked like she really was just sleeping, except for the breathing tube down her throat, her second in three weeks. Emma looked stunned by her appearance and even Josh felt his heart clench painfully when he saw Donna, as it had every time he'd been in that room. Only Dr. Flynn seemed nonplused by the site in front of him but Josh knew it came from years and years of seeing this, not indifference.  
  
"That's my mommy?" Emma asked quietly, as if she still couldn't believe it.  
  
"Yeah," Josh told her, "that's your mommy. I know it looks bad but she can't feel anything. Remember what we talked about a couple of minutes ago."  
  
"Can I.?" she started, pointing to a spot next to the bed's headboard.  
  
"Sure," Josh nodded. "It's okay, you won't hurt her. Just be real careful around all these machines."  
  
Emma nodded and began walking forward to her mother. When she got there, she examined Donna for a few minutes, looking over her face and upper body, almost trying to convince herself that it was really Mommy. After a little while she seemed convinced and looked at Donna's hand, which had an I.V. tube in it. Emma tentatively reached her little hand up near the bed and hesitated when she got to Donna's hand.  
  
"Its fine," Dr. Flynn assured her. "You won't hurt at all if you hold her hand. In fact, she'll probably know it's you."  
  
"How?" Emma asked, still not taking her mother's hand.  
  
"Well, when people are asleep like your mommy," Michael began, going over to stand beside the child, "they can't wake up but doctors have discovered that when they're asleep like this, they can still sometimes hear and feel the things around them. And it helps them when they hear or feel the people they the most around them."  
  
"They do?" Emma asked, fascinated. She slowly reached out and grasped her mother's hand in her own small one.  
  
"They do," Dr. Flynn confirmed.  
  
"So if I talk to Mommy while she's sleeping," Emma said, trying to connect the dots, "she might hear me, even if she doesn't wake up?"  
  
"I think we've got a future MD on our hands," Dr. Flynn grinned at Josh. "Listen I have to go finish some work so I can be ready for tomorrow. Why don't we scoot out of here and get you to bed?"  
  
"Just a couple more minutes?" she begged. "I just wanna talk to her for a little bit."  
  
The doctor looked at his watch and then at Josh. "Five more minutes or so." He ordered quietly. "Then get her to bed before one of the nurses or Donna's family checks in."  
  
"Sure," Josh promised.  
  
"Well I will see you in the morning, young lady," Dr. Flynn bid Emma a goodbye as she continued to stare at the still figure of her mother. "Goodnight, Josh," he told the man. As he walked by him, Michael gave him a small pat on the shoulder. He exited the room and left them in the room with the most important person in both their lives.  
  
"Hi Mommy," the child said softly, as if she was almost afraid to disturb her mother. "It's me, Emma. I missed you so, so much, Mommy. It seemed like it was a really long time since I saw you. You still look really beau.beaut.pretty, even though everyone says you're real sick." She paused as if thinking of something else to say. "I drew a picture for you in preschool. Mrs. March said it was the most nicest picture she'd ever seen. I can bring it in here for you to put on your wall for when you wake up." She turned her head and saw Josh looking at her, a small smile gracing his face. "And guess what? I met Josh too. You were right, Mommy, he's really nice and funny, even if he and Uncle T.J. don't get along. But that's okay, 'cause Nana Mena likes him. She said if he wasn't head over heels for you and she was twenty years younger, she'd pounce on him like a tiger." Josh coughed a bit, quite surprised with the Moss family matriarch's little crush on him. "Josh?"  
  
"Yeah?" he answered her.  
  
"Do you think the doctors would mind if I tried something to help Mommy? I wouldn't have to touch her or anything bad like that, it's just something she does for me when I'm sick, so maybe."  
  
Josh hesitated for beat, trying to weigh his nervousness about what Emma had in mind against the hopeful look in her eyes. "Okay," he said cautiously. "What are you going to do?"  
  
She didn't answer him, just climbed onto a chair that was near Donna's bed and kneeled on it. She took her mother's hand, while her other was ever so softly caressing the top of Donna's head, before she started singing in a small childlike voice.  
  
Smile. Though your heart is aching. Smile. Even though it's breaking. When there are clouds, In the sky you'll get by.  
  
If you smile, through your fear and sorrow. Smile and maybe tomorrow. You'll see the sun come shining through For you.  
  
Light. Up your face with gladness. Hide. Every trace of sadness. Although a tear, Maybe ever so near.  
  
That's the time you must keep on trying. Smile, what's the use of crying? You'll find that life is still worthwhile, If you just. Smile.  
  
As she finished, she leaned over to her mother's forehead and placed the gentlest kiss on it. She turned back to Josh, who was openly shedding quiet tears at the scene that had just played out in front of him. He came over to them and leaned down over Donna to place a lingering kiss on the same spot that Emma had. He then turned to the girl and bent down to place a kiss on her forehead. She reached up with her arms and circled them around his neck. He in turn wrapped his arms around her back as her legs curled around his waist. Josh hoisted Emma off the chair and held her close to him. She laid her head on his shoulder and let out a big yawn.  
  
"Come on," he whispered, his voice still gruff with emotion. "Let's get you to bed. Big day tomorrow."  
  
"Okay," she whispered back, her eyes already succumbing to exhaustion. "Goodnight, Mommy. Feel better." she trailed off as she gave into sleep.  
  
"Yeah," Josh replied, even though he knew she couldn't her him. "We're gonna make Mommy better." He paused and looked from Donna's pale face to the heavens that gazed at him from the windows. "Please God, if you're out there don't make a liar out of me," he begged anxiously. He swallowed back his remaining tears and left the room to put Donna's daughter, the girl he loved like his own daughter, into her bed. 


	7. Chapter 7

Donna's Room: The Next Morning  
  
".And when her pre-school teacher called me that afternoon I simply told her exactly what you would have and that is that Emma is the most perfect of all God's creatures and she could just shove it," Mena said proudly. She was talking to Donna's motionless figure while Emma was in surgery. The pacing and silence of the waiting room had become too much for her and she retreated to the antiseptic safety of the ICU room, carrying on a one-sided conversation with her granddaughter.  
  
"So I hope you don't mind me coming in here for a little chat," she told Donna. "But I was slowly losing what little was left of my mind waiting in that room. Everyone was just pacing, looking at their watches, trying to make idle chitchat. It was enough to have driven your grandfather crazy and he was the most patient man I ever met." She sighed gently. "I wish you could remember him, you were so young when he past away. You would have loved him. Oh, he adored you kids so much. Spoiled you all rotten, no matter what your mother or I said. I remember this one Christmas; you couldn't have been more than Emma's age. Nicole was almost nine and T.J. was a newborn. Against the expressed orders of myself and your mother, your grandfather drove one hundred miles, both ways, in the middle of one of the worst snow storms of the decade to pick up a collection of antique dolls that he'd bought for you girls and a custom-made rocking horse for your brother. Oh we gave him such hell for that one. But that was who he was, such a kind soul. I still miss his smile, even after all these years." She glanced down at Donna's body. Her face was still ghostly pale but Mena though she had just the slightest hint of color in her cheeks. Her chest moved steadily up and down, aided by the respirator. Dr. Flynn had told them before he'd brought Emma to the O.R. that Donna was spontaneously breathing on her own, which was a very good sign. It meant that her body was slowly coming out the coma it was trapped in. It meant she was getting better. It meant that they could hope that she'd be all right.  
  
"Good men are hard to find in this world," Mena said to Donna. "I'm sure that's something that you realized a long time ago. There aren't many women in this world that are lucky enough to find their match. Just look at your sister as an example. She married Kyle after dating him for almost eight years and they're divorced eighteen months later. There are never any guarantees with love, my little Bella. You don't always get the chance for your happily ever after. Sometimes you just have to settle for a "nice to be here right now". But I don't think you have to worry about that. You got yourself a good one this time." She smiled at Donna. "Josh loves you so much. When he looks at you, talks about you, or even just thinks about you, he gets this look on his face. It's just this look of such peace and calmness. You would get the same look whenever you spoke of him. You two are a good match for one another. And for Emma. I think Josh will be a good father to her; he already adores her after only a few days. Not that Emma isn't able to do that with anyone she meets but it's a different story with Josh. He's so protective of her, so gentle with her. Like he's loved her for years. Maybe on some cosmic, spiritual level he has. You hold onto him, Donnatella Igraine. Love him, honor him, and protect him as best you can. Never, ever lose sight of your love." She laughed out loud. "God, here I am giving you this advice like its you wedding day and you and Josh aren't even dating yet!"  
  
"I'm sure it's a foregone conclusion at this point," a voice quietly startled Mena from behind. She turned to find T.J. standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in each hand. "I figured I'd find you here."  
  
"Any news?" she asked worriedly.  
  
"Not yet," he shook his head. "I noticed that you disappeared before, so I figured I'd go looking for you to kill some time. How long you been here?"  
  
She shrugged her shoulders. "A half hour or so," she answered flippantly. "I just couldn't take it in there anymore."  
  
"I hear you," he agreed. He indicated with his head towards the hallway. "You want to head back? I'm sure there's going to be an update soon."  
  
"Fine," Mena said. She brought Donna's hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to it. "Get strong, my dear. We need you. I'll be back soon." She got up and followed T.J. out of the room, removing her ICU issued attire and taking one of the steaming Styrofoam cups from him. They started back down the hallway going towards the operating wing of the hospital where the rest of their group was gathered.  
  
"So how much did you hear back there?" Mena asked her grandson curiously as they slowly walked back.  
  
"Not too much," he admitted. He paused as if he wanted to add something but chose not to."  
  
"What is it?" she asked him.  
  
"Nothing. Just.nothing.  
  
"T.J. please, tell me. You know you can say anything to me."  
  
"Anything?" he questioned.  
  
"Absolutely anything."  
  
"Anything I want?"  
  
"Anything your little heart desires."  
  
"I don't think that Josh is right for Donna," he spat out.  
  
She frowned at him. "You could've said anything except that."  
  
"Mena," he said softly.  
  
"No don't 'Mena' me, young man," she retorted sternly.  
  
"I'm just saying." he tried to get in.  
  
"How can you say something like that after all he's done for Donna in the past few weeks?" she asked incredulously. "After all that he's done for your niece? How can stand there and say.?"  
  
"What, how a year from now he might not even be in their lives anymore?" he exclaimed angrily.  
  
The two of them stopped walking and Mena turned to look at grandson, a bewildered expression on her face. "What the hell are you taking about, T.J.?" she asked him softly, surprised by the apparent irritation in his voice.  
  
He took a deep breath to calm himself down. "Josh depends on her for work," T.J. started. "He needs her to keep his schedule on track, to help him get research, to attend certain events with him, to be his emotional outlet, to help him run his life," he finished, emphasizing the last point. "Is it me or does this sound just a little bit too familiar for anyone else?"  
  
She shook her head, finally catching his point. "You think he's gonna turn out to be like Ben, don't you?" she stated.  
  
"Yes I do," he answered her. "I always have, since the moment she started working for him. That's why I was so glad when she came home the first time. He doesn't deserve what she gives to him and since I seem to be the only one in this family who can see past his charm or whatever it is that's got you guys acting like he's the second-coming of Sinatra, I'm gonna say it." He paused to take a breath. "And don't think that you can change my mind about him because you can't." The two of them started walking again.  
  
"I can see that," Mena admitted. "Can I ask what you plan to do about this situation when your sister gets better? I mean it's not like you can go and beat him up if you suspect he's doing something wrong to Donna, like you've done with almost every other boyfriend she's had since high school that treated her badly. I have a feeling that President Bartlet would not be pleased with you attacking one of his closest advisors."  
  
"I don't know," he shrugged. "I just know that if he hurts Donna or Emma in any way I'm not gonna be held responsible for my actions."  
  
"Well that's very mature of you, T.J.," she said sarcastically. "Putting your own feelings first and completely disregarding that of Donna and Emma's. Really, I'm very impressed."  
  
"I'm an adult now, Mena," he said. "I'm allowed to be a selfish jerk every now and then. Besides, the only reason your defending him is because you think he's cute," he teased.  
  
"And whatever made you think that?" she asked him smiling, glad that the seriousness of the conversation was gone for the moment.  
  
T.J. turned to his grandmother with a sly grin. "You better be careful what you and Lily talk about in private," he warned her. "You never know what little munchkins are lurking behind partially closed doors."  
  
"Ah, my great-granddaughter," she replied. "An eavesdropping little troll if there ever was one." She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. "Just like her uncle. Who, no matter what man his sister ends up with, will always be his niece's favorite playmate," she assured him.  
  
They finally reached their destination and noticed that their group had expanded. Josh, Lily, and Nicole were still there and they were now joined by some of Josh and Donna's co-workers. The attractive speechwriter, Sam, was standing with Josh in a corner, trying to talk him but not having much success. Sitting with Nicole were some of Donna's fellow assistants, the redhead who never seemed to stop talking and the one who worked for CJ. Lily, ever the flirt, was talking with a group of men. Charlie, the young one, and two others, Ed and Larry, although Mena couldn't tell you which was which if her life depended on it.  
  
"Anything new?" Mena asked as she stepped into the room. Everyone shook their heads. "Is anyone hungry?" Again, everyone responded by shaking their heads. "Do any of you want to go for a quick walk?" Once more, a collective shaking of their heads. "Okay," she said. "Does anyone in here want to go into the closet for a quickie?" Everyone started to shake their heads but immediately snapped them back up when her words sunk in. The group all looked at her with a mixture of puzzlement and horror. "Humor," she stated. "Too much tension in one room will drive people crazy. But if anyone's interested."  
  
"I think I speak for everybody when I say I'm, personally, immensely flattered, but I'll have to pass," Josh answered, smiling at her despite his near-ulcer like worry.  
  
"Hey speak for yourself," Lily retorted. "I'm all for experimentation." Everyone started laughing quietly and that was the condition that Dr. Flynn found the group in when he walked into the room a few seconds later. The laughter stopped as soon as they noticed he was in the room. He didn't say anything for a moment and he wasn't smiling, so everyone immediately assumed the worst.  
  
"What happened?" Nicole finally got brave enough to ask.  
  
Dr. Flynn surveyed the group in front of him, all anxious with worry and fear. His eyes finally rested on Josh, who had a look of sheer terror in his eyes, before he started to speak. "It looks good," he told them. "It was a by-the-book procedure and it looks really, really good. We're bringing the marrow down to Donna's room now and if all goes according to plan, we should know something soon."  
  
"When will we know if it worked or not?" Sam questioned.  
  
Dr. Flynn thought for a moment. "It could be anytime," he explained. "It could take a few hours or a few days. Maybe even a week or so. With the improvement in her vital signs, I believe we should know something by today."  
  
Everyone heaved a collective sigh of relief. Mena and T.J. hugged on another, Lily let out a great shriek of excitement, Nicole began shedding tears of joy, and Josh released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. He let Sam slap him lightly on the back and took in the scene around him before he turned back to the doctor.  
  
"And Emma's fine?" he asked hurriedly. The celebration was briefly aborted to hear the doctor's answer.  
  
"Emma's perfectly fine," he reassured them. "A little sore and tired but she'll be bouncing around her room in no time." Another celebration was started at hearing that good news. "She was, however, requesting one thing when she was coming out of the anesthetic."  
  
"What?" Josh asked quickly. "What does she want?"  
  
Michael pointed his finger at Josh. "To see you."  
  
"Really?" Josh asked, more than a bit surprised. He assumed that she'd want to see her Nana or her aunt and uncle when she woke up. "Is.is it okay if I go see her now?"  
  
"Of course it is," Dr. Flynn told him. "She'll probably go back to sleep in a little while but you can talk to her for a little bit if you like."  
  
"Well yeah, sure," Josh said excitedly going over to get his jacket. Then he remembered Emma's family. He turned to them. "I mean, unless you guys want."  
  
Mena went over to him and forcibly turned him around back towards Dr. Flynn. "Go see my great-grandchild," she ordered, "And tell her that Nana loves her and that I'll see her very soon."  
  
"Same here," Nicole instructed. She turned to her brother. "Right T.J.?" He didn't answer her right away, just stared at Josh with an unreadable expression for a few seconds. "Right T.J.?" she repeated, raising her eyebrows at him. He didn't answer her, just turned and walked out of the room. Nicole sighed. "God, he hasn't changed a bit since kindergarten."  
  
"He'll come around," Mena told Josh. "Eventually. He's both blessed and cursed with his mother's stubbornness. But don't mind that now, Emma's waiting for you."  
  
Those seemed to be the magic words. As soon as he heard them, Josh met Michael at the door and followed him out to Recovery. They walked past a series of rooms until they reached Emma's. They walked in and saw the little girl staring groggily at the wall to her right. She looked to them when she heard them enter and her tired eyes immediately lit up when she saw Josh.  
  
"Josh!" Emma hoarsely exclaimed. She reached up out of the blankets she was nestled in and lifted her arms up weakly.  
  
"Hey sweetheart," he said as he walked over to her and enclosed himself in her arms, neither noticing that Dr. Flynn quietly excused himself from the room for a moment. They just stayed like that for a minute, holding onto to one another, each feeling a little safer wrapped in the other's embrace. Josh finally pulled back to place a kiss on her cheek. "How you feeling?"  
  
Emma scrunched up her face. "Icky," she moaned out. "I feel super icky."  
  
"Super icky, as opposed to sort of icky?" Josh teased her lightly. He was rewarded when she started to smile. "Or kind of icky or even just really icky?"  
  
"Super-duper icky," she clarified. Then another thought besides the level of her ickiness entered her brain. "Is Mommy better yet?"  
  
"Not yet," Dr. Flynn said, reentering the room, with someone behind him. "But we're going to get working on that right now. First, though, there's someone here who wants to meet you."  
  
"Who?" Josh questioned suspiciously. He didn't think that Emma was up to having any new visitors right now. And he sure as hell didn't think she should be meeting strange people that he didn't know. "I thought she shouldn't be having too many visitor right now?"  
  
"Oh come on Josh," a booming, familiar voice said from the doorway. "I just want to meet the kid, I'm not going to quiz her on Constitutional law or anything." Josh's eyes bugged out and he hastily rose to his feet as the President and two agents entered the room. "Do you have a problem with that, Josh?"  
  
"Uh, no Sir," he stammered out, a little bit unsettled.  
  
Emma looked up from her bed at the new man in her room a bit curiously. He looked very familiar but Emma couldn't remember where she'd seen him before. "Who are you?" she asked him bluntly.  
  
Jed looked at the child and chuckled lightly. "You'll have to excuse me," he told her. "It's just been a long time since anyone's asked me that. My name is Jed Bartlet, it's a pleasure to finally meet you."  
  
"Hi," Emma answered weakly. "I'm Emma. It's nice to meet you Mr. Bartlet."  
  
"Mr. Bartlet," he repeated, looking at the other men in the room, all of them smiling. Even the agents were holding back grins. "Again, something I'm not used to hearing. So I understand that you're feeling a little."  
  
"Icky," Josh supplied. "But not a little icky, Sir. She feels super-duper icky."  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," the President told Emma.  
  
She shrugged her shoulders as best she could. "I don't mind," she said. "I just want my Mommy to be better."  
  
"I second that," Jed replied. She really was a sweet child. "So do you mind if I sit with you for a little bit?" She shook her head no. "Well okay then. Now where are you from, Emma?"  
  
"Madison, Wisconsinion," she stumbled. "With my Nana. And Mommy lives there too sometimes."  
  
"Does she?" Jed commented. "Can I ask why you with Nana and not Mommy."  
  
"Sir," Josh started. "I don't think we need to know that right now. Maybe later we can ask but now."  
  
"Josh," the President interrupted him. "Am I mistaken or did you just tell me I couldn't do something?"  
  
"Um, uh, no Sir," Josh fumbled. "I just meant that, uh, Emma's tired and now is probably not the best time to be, you know, questioning her about her life and."  
  
"I live with Nana 'cause Mommy doesn't have time for me to live with her 'cause of her work," Emma said benignly. The two men looked at her strangely.  
  
"I'm sorry?" Josh croaked out.  
  
"Mommy has to work," Emma explained. "And 'cause she works so hard, she can't have me live with her 'cause she's never home. But Nana is home so I live with her." She hadn't meant to hurt anyone's feelings when she said this but Josh instantly felt terribly guilty. He had inadvertently kept Donna from raising her daughter. He couldn't remember a time recently when he'd felt worse. The President was bearing a bit of the burden on himself as well.  
  
"Well that's going to have to change," Josh promised her. He sat down next to her on the bed and pulled her into a hug. He bent and kissed the top of her head. "I think you're going to need to come live up here, with Mommy, when she gets better."  
  
"Really?" she breathed. "I can really live with my mommy?"  
  
"Why don't we just take things one step at a time," Jed gently advised, enjoying the sight of seeing his deputy C.o.S snuggled up with a small child who clearly adored him. "But first things first, I have a special delivery for you, Emma."  
  
"A present?" she asked excitedly, even in her tired state.  
  
"You bet," the President answered her as he motioned for one of the agents to bring something in. "A little bird told me that there was something that you wanted after you woke up today and I made it my mission to get it here for you." The agent returned, holding a bowl of what looked to be ice cream. Emma's eyes shined like a Christmas tree. "I believe the young lady requested peppermint ice cream if my information is correct." He winked at Josh, who still had his arm around Emma. "I don't know though, Josh. Should we let her have it now or should we wait a few hours for the ice cream to get all warm and melted."  
  
"Now, now, now!" Emma chanted, shouting before she remembered how much her throat hurt. She put on what Aunt Nicole called her, "Angelic Kitten", face. "Please?" she whispered hoarsely.  
  
"Oh boy," the President groaned good-naturedly, handing Emma the bowl and spoon. "Joshua Lyman, you don't know what kind of trouble you've gotten yourself into, my friend."  
  
Josh grinned down at the little girl, who was happily shoveling scoopfuls of ice cream into her mouth, oblivious to everything. "I can handle it," he assured his leader with a smile.  
  
Jed nodded towards Dr. Flynn. "So he says now. Let's see how well he handles it when she's sixteen."  
  
"Excuse me, Dr. Flynn," a young nurse said from the doorway, casting a strange look at the men who were detaining her. "You have a phone call from the ICU, regarding a patient. They said it's urgent."  
  
Dr. Flynn sighed tiredly. "A doctor's work is never done," he said getting up. "Which patient was it?"  
  
"Donna Moss," the nurse told him.  
  
The doctor paused for half a beat. "Stay here," he instructed the two men silently. "I'll have you called down when I know something." With that, he turned and hustled out of the room  
  
The two men in the room were completely at a loss for the next few minutes. Neither of them came out of it at first and Josh remained frozen in his spot next to Emma, who thankfully hadn't picked up on the exchange. He was torn between what he should do. Should he stay here and make sure Emma was fine or should he go and see what had happened to Donna? His instinct told him to go to Donna but he was reluctant to leave Emma alone. The President picked up on his dilemma and made the choice for him.  
  
"Emma," Jed said to the little girl. "Do you mind if I stay here and talk to you alone for a minute. I need to talk to you about something very, very important. But the thing is, you're the only person I can talk to it about. No one else can be here."  
  
"What about Josh?" Emma asked, wiping some ice cream off her chin.  
  
"Well," Jed explained, "Josh has something very, very important that he needs to do right now. But I promise, as soon as he's done and as soon as we're done discussing our super-secret important stuff, he'll come back here to spend time with you, I promise."  
  
"Okay," Emma conceded grudgingly. "But you can't stay away for too long," she instructed him.  
  
"Oh, I won't be too long," Josh promised, hugging her to him. "You just be a good girl and keep the Pres.Mr. Bartlet company. Okay?" She nodded her head and let him get out of the bed. Josh bent back down to give her one more kiss on her head before he hurried out of the room with a nervous glance towards the President.  
  
He saw Dr. Flynn rushing down the hallway and he began to follow him. There wasn't any other thought in his head except that something had happened to Donna and he needed to get to her. Before he knew it, he was running down the hallways, heading for the stairs in his haste to get to Donna.  
  
When he finally arrived, he saw a small crowd of doctors and nurses around her door and in the room itself. Sitting on the bench, he spotted Mena, bent over sobbing into her hands, with Nicole's arms wrapped around her. He couldn't see Nicole's face but he could tell by the heaving of her shoulders that she was crying as well. Next to them, he saw T.J. with his arms wrapped around what looked to be Lily, who seemed no better than the other two women were. Only T.J. wasn't openly shedding tears, but he looked like he was about to. In Josh's mind, a scene like this could only mean one thing.  
  
"No," he whispered. "No. Please, please no." His mouth felt like he'd swallowed a mouthful of cotton and his legs felt like a quivering mass of Jell-O, which caused him to slump against the nearest wall. There were spots popping into his eyesight and breathing suddenly felt like a weight his chest couldn't lift. This could not be happening. He looked into the window of the room to try to see some sort of activity near Donna but he could find none. The doctors and nurses were crowded around her bed and Josh wasn't even able to make out her figure.  
  
'This can't be happening,' was the only thought flashing in his mind. 'This can not be happening to Donna.' He struggled to breathe but no one else seemed to notice him, each caught up in their own feelings at the moment. All of Donna's family was there, save her father and. 'Emma' he thought. "Oh my God, how do I explain this to her? How do I tell her that her mommy isn't.' The concept was just too much for Josh to deal with, considering all the other emotions coursing through him right then.  
  
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was really no more than a minute or so, Dr. Flynn emerged from the room, followed by most of the other doctors and nurses who had been gathered in the room. There was an expression of what looked to be shock on his face. He finally spoke to them when he noticed them all.  
  
"Um," he began. "I.I can't believe it. I really can't believe what's happened."  
  
And with those words, Josh felt the last of his hope slip away. "You sonofabitch," Josh spat out quietly. Everyone turned to look at him, as if noticing him in the area for the first time. "What the hell gives you the right.?"  
  
"Now Josh," Dr. Flynn tried to cut in. "Let me explain."  
  
"No, you let me explain for once, you bastard!" Josh shouted, frightening everyone near him. "She was everything to me! Everything in this whole godforsaken world! And you just let her...just let her." he trailed off, not even able to say the words. How could this have happened? "Why?" he begged desperately. "Why'd it have to be her? Why couldn't it have been someone who deserved it?"  
  
"Josh please listen for a moment," Dr. Flynn tried again. "I'm trying to tell you."  
  
"I need to see her," Josh suddenly proclaimed. "I need to see why this happened to her." With that, he launched himself from his spot near the wall towards the door to Donna's room. He needed to see what had happened to her, what death had done to her. He was in the room before he knew it and readied himself to collapse into tears the moment he saw the lifeless figure on the bed. Instead, the sight he saw laying on the bed stole what little breath he had left in his lungs.  
  
"Hey," Donna faintly whispered to him from the bed, where a smiling nurse was taking out a certain IV bag from the pole and replacing it with another. Her face was still pale, her hair was hanging limply around her, and her voice sounded horrible. But her eyes were shining bright and luminous right at him. "Did I miss anything good?"  
  
"Donna?" he breathed, not believing what was in front of him. His eyes scanned her body, her face, her chest rising and falling; trying to commit it all to memory in case she was to disappear into thin air in the next minute.  
  
"Excuse me," Donna said, turning her head to the nurse. "Would you mind terribly getting me a camera?"  
  
"A camera?" the nurse inquired, confused.  
  
"Yeah," she said, looking back at the stunned expression on Josh's face. "This is the first, and probably only, moment I've ever seen him speechless. I want to record it for prosperity."  
  
Josh breathed in deeply. "Oh my God," he said quietly. "It's really you. You're.you're here."  
  
"Yep," she confirmed. "Can't get rid of me that easily."  
  
He stepped into the room as the nurse excused herself. "Not too long," she whispered to Josh as she past him, closing the door behind her. He walked slowly up to her, looking at the reddish liquid from the IV bag that was slowly making it's way into her body.  
  
"Is.is that the marrow?" he asked hesitantly, not being able to think of anything else to say.  
  
"Yeah," she answered. She gave him a soft smile as she reached out her hand for him. Much like Emma had been the night before, Josh was tentative in taking it in his own. "It's okay," she told him. "I won't break. I actually feel better than I have in awhile."  
  
"Yeah?" Josh responded happily. She nodded slowly at him. "That's great," he replied, happier and more relieved than he could remember ever feeling. "Listen, when you're feeling stronger, there's some things we gotta talk about. I don't know if you remember but before the coma I told you that."  
  
"I love you too, Josh," Donna immediately cut in. She giggled at the dazed expression on his face. "I remembered," she explained. "And if I hadn't, you've told me you loved me everyday that I've been in here. I could hear you; I could feel you; sometimes when you weren't even here. But if even if you hadn't been here, you still would've been with me because I love you and I would've found a way to have you near me." She brought her hand up to his face and stroked his cheek. "Besides," she said seriously, "if I hadn't told you that just now, my grandmother would have been on you like white on rice." He let out a burst of laughter at that comment and she giggled right along with him. "I take it you've been informed of her infatuation with you."  
  
"Yeah, I got wind of it," he told her, kissing her hand. "Speaking of your family, I should probably apologize to them and to Dr. Flynn. I kind of."  
  
"I heard," Donna interrupted. "I'm sure they'll get over it. We've probably only got a few more minutes before my family takes me hostage again. You probably won't see me awhile when they get their hands on me. I'm amazed they haven't stormed in here already."  
  
"Well they probably went to go check on Emma," Josh informed her. Her happy expression instantly faded away and Josh could make out the beginnings of tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Donna, what's wrong?" he asked worriedly.  
  
"She's here," Donna cried. "They really made her come here, even after I begged them not to."  
  
"Donna, it's okay."Josh tried to assure her but she wouldn't listen.  
  
"God I didn't want her to see me like this," Donna moaned. "I mean she's not even five yet, I think. I mean I'm not sure of the date but."  
  
"No, Emma's still four but her birthday's only about three months away. I was thinking about the Bartlet's farm for her birthday party. It's really nice up there in the fall and she could have a horse up there and."  
  
"And you know about her?" Donna asked stunned. "Oh my God, I was going to tell you I swear I was. But when you hired me, things were so hectic and I didn't want to piss you off and then the White House.Most mornings I forgot to brush my teeth and working fifteen hours a day while taking care of an infant couldn't have worked so.  
  
"But now since you're not going to be working fifteen hours a day anymore, I don't see why Emma couldn't come live with you. Or why you could not brush your teeth, an issue we'll return to later. Of course you can't live in your apartment, not in that dump you call a home but we can fix up the spare room at my place for Emma. We could do like a whole sports theme for the room, I've already started teaching her in the ways of Mets's fanaticism. I'm also in a better school district than you are plus Bonnie's brother-in-law is a great pediatrician and his office is only twenty minutes outside of DC, we can get her records over to his office soon."  
  
"Wait a second," Donna interjected, motioning with her hand for him to stop talking. She paused to take a breath and absorb all the information Josh had given her while she was rambling on. She looked at him hopefully. "You're okay with all this? With Emma and.?"  
  
"Not really," he admitted. Her face immediately fell. "I mean, she's in kindergarten and she can only read at a third-grade level. That doesn't look good on her admission's application for Harvard. She and I are gonna have to work on that." He laughed at her confused expression. "Donna, it's fine. Emma is. well there's not a word in any language that can accurately describe her. But for our purposes here, she's amazing. We bonded like this," he said, snapping his fingers. "She and I are great, don't worry about that. Worry about finding a wedding dress."  
  
"Oh," she sighed in relief. Then she caught the last thing he'd said. "Excuse me?" she asked.  
  
"Wedding dress," he explained. "You know, huge white blob of fabric that a bride wears on her wedding day. When she gets married."  
  
"I'm familiar with the concept," she said breathy. "Did you just ask me.?" She stopped as he reached into his pants pocket and produced a small, black velvet box. "Oh my God," she said. He opened the box to reveal a shining, tastefully cut triangular diamond wrapped in a gold band. "Oh my God," she repeated. "I.I.Oh my.you didn't have this picked out for Amy and then just decide to.?"  
  
"No!" he exclaimed, slightly offended. "I didn't have this picked for Amy. If I did, I'd have to have gotten a sterling silver band instead.never mind," he said, noticing the fiery expression on Donna's face. "It was a ring my father left me in his will. You see, he was gonna propose to my mom with this but he ended up losing it the night he proposed so he just used an old piece of fishing line he tied into a ring. This," he said, indicating to the box," he found about a month before he died. Coincidently, on the same day he first talked with you." He took the ring out of the box and held it between his thumb and forefinger. "So whaddya say? Will you marry me?"  
  
Donna looked at him carefully, his smiling face and the raised eyebrows. He really was too cute for his own good. She smiled back at him and gave him the only answer she could. "Not right now."  
  
Josh could practically feel the muscles of his face start sagging. The air deflated from his lungs like a balloon and he was fairly certain if he had a mirror, he'd look remarkably like a deer caught in the headlights. He wasn't sure what the proper etiquette was in this situation. Should he leave quietly or make some grand, romantic gesture. After taking a second, he decided it was probably best for him to just go out with a little bit of his dignity left.  
  
"Well.okay," he stated slowly, getting up from his chair. "I guess, I'll see you later then." He walked towards the door in a daze, the ring in his hand, his mind still not contemplating what had just transpired.  
  
"Josh," Donna gently called out to him. "I didn't say I didn't want to marry you, I just said not right now."  
  
Josh shook his head and rolled his eyes. "It shouldn't surprise you in the least to know I have no idea what that means," he complained.  
  
"It means," she explained, "I'd like to have a first date before I jump into marriage. So," she looked around the small area. "Ask me to have a drink with you."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Just do it, Joshua," she moaned lightly.  
  
"Okay," he said. "Donna, will you have a drink with me?" he asked, feeling like an idiot.  
  
"I would love to," she told him. "Now, pour us some water.  
  
"Okay," he repeated, catching on to her little game and going over to pour the water. "One for you," he said handing her a plastic cup. "And one for me," pouring his own cup.  
  
"Cheers," Donna replied, lifting her cup as high as she could in her weakened state. Josh clicked his cup with hers and they both took a small drink. "There," she coughed out as she carefully swallowed. "Now," she looked at him expectantly, "I believe there was something you wanted to ask me."  
  
He kissed her on the lips before he could stop himself before kneeling down on one knee and raising the ring up to her. "Donna Moss," he began seriously, "Will you marry me?"  
  
She held up her hand for him to put the ring on her finger and smiled at him through the tears running down her cheeks. "Yes!" she happily told him, pulling him up for a kiss on the lips, neither noticing the shouts of happiness from their family and friends coming from outside the door.  
  
The End. [For now!] 


End file.
